The eighteenth century, having inherited a pessimism from classical anthropology that its own ideology of progress had to absorb, seemed to have invented le mal de vivre. Clues to this condition are suggested by the etymology of the term vacuus: vacuousness of existence (“Everywhere I find a terrifying emptiness,” asserted the hero of a novel around 1769), and “a vague disquiet which permeates everything and finds nothing to calm it,” according to the definition of Jacques the Fatalist. Le mal (...) de vivre was indeed an invention because, despite a terminology that was inspired by the theory of humors (“hysterical vapors” among women; “hypochondriac melancholy” for men), the philosophers and doctors of the Enlightenment already had envisaged the fatality of an anatomical “limit” for the etiology of “afflictions of the soul.” In this way, according to the Eléments de Physiologie (Elements of Physiology) of Diderot, the agitation of the imagination actually represented the degree of irritability, or of erethism, of the nervous system: “the dreams of young people in a state of innocence come from the extremities of the fibres (meaning the nervous fibres) which are the original carriers of obscure desires, vague disquiet, a melancholy whose cause they do not understand.” If we believe the article on “delight” (jouissance) in the Encyclopaedia, a “vague and melancholy disquiet,” which is linked in particular with the physiological changes occurring at puberty, constitutes a general and “normal” state of sensation, all “delight” implying by this definition the absence of disquiet in comparison with its external object. Reduced to its vibratile intensities, the “perceiving body” that is deprived of its totalizing metaphor becomes pulverized and fragmented into so many “desiring monads.” Like Condillac's statue, it destabilizes itself through the fields of force of the phenomenal world, completely obedient to the energy economy of other bodies that define its external frontier, left to the contradictory universal laws of attraction and repulsion that govern them: “Here below, each part, through a higher impulse, combines toward the central harmony of a whole. We collide with one another and are thrown backward and forward by the force maintaining a general equilibrium and order, in which we participate mechanically.”. (shrink)

This book discusses the ethical dimension of the interpretation of texts and events. Its purpose is not to address the neutrality or ideological biases of interpreters, but rather to discuss the underlying issue of the intervention of interpreters into the process of interpretation. The author calls this intervention the "ethical" aspect of interpretation and argues that interpreters are neither neutral nor necessarily activists. He examines three models of interpretation, all of which recognize the role that interpreters play in the process (...) of interpretation. In these models, the question of the truth or validity of interpretation is dependent upon the attitude of interpreters. These three models are: (1) the principle of charity in interpretation in the two different versions defended by Hans-Georg Gadamer and Donald Davidson; (2) the production of truth, as developed by Paul Ricoeur and Michel Foucault; and (3) the regulative principle in interpretation as formal validity claims-as presented by Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas-and as benevolence or love as an epistemic virtue-as defended by Friedrich Schlegel and Friedrich Schleiermacher. The critical discussion of these three models, which brings to the fore the different manners in which interpreters intervene in the process of interpretation as persons, lays the foundations for an ethics of interpretation. The Ethics of Interpretation will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in hermeneutics, 19th- and 20th-century philosophy, literary theory, and cultural theory. (shrink)

Following some remarks of Jacques Taminiaux on Gadamer, I examine the permeating presence of history and alterity in interpretation by contrasting Gadamer’s views with Davidson’s notion of “radical interpretation.” I start by examining the debate they held with each other on several occasions. I then analyze Gadamer’s understanding of interpretation as a “hermeneutic experience” and Davidson’s method of “triangulation.” They both agree that interpretation should be free from the psychological turmoil of either divining an author’s intent or projecting the (...) reader’s expectations. The fundamental difference is that, for Davidson, interpretation is an ahistorical process taking place in the synchrony of interpreter and observed subjects, whereas for Gadamer interpretation is a historical “event,” in which something “happens” and contributes to the making of history. (shrink)

Following some remarks of Jacques Taminiaux on Gadamer, I examine the permeating presence of history and alterity in interpretation by contrasting Gadamer’s views with Davidson’s notion of “radical interpretation.” I start by examining the debate they held with each other on several occasions. I then analyze Gadamer’s understanding of interpretation as a “hermeneutic experience” and Davidson’s method of “triangulation.” They both agree that interpretation should be free from the psychological turmoil of either divining an author’s intent or projecting the (...) reader’s expectations. The fundamental difference is that, for Davidson, interpretation is an ahistorical process taking place in the synchrony of interpreter and observed subjects, whereas for Gadamer interpretation is a historical “event,” in which something “happens” and contributes to the making of history. (shrink)

Many contemporary thinkers of the Anthropocene, who attempt to articulate a non-modern and relational ontology, all too readily dismiss critical theory inherited from the Frankfurt School for being anthropocentric, failing to acknowledge certain basic similarities. Instead, this article argues that the scaffolding of Anthropocene thinking—the recognition of the origins of the contemporary condition of ‘loss of world’ and the hope of ‘living on in the ruins’—share much with earlier critical theorists’ recognition that the Holocaust necessitated a fundamental break with (...) the past. In reading these two sets of literatures together, we suggest we can get a better grasp of the stakes involved in the contemporary crisis of critique, and in the speculative framings enabling alternative futures to come into being. (shrink)

In this article, I apply the concept of solidarity to collective knowledge practices in healthcare. Generally, solidarity acknowledges that people are dependent on each other in many respects, and it captures those support practices that people engage in out of concern for others in whom they recognise a relevant similarity. Drawing on the rich literature on solidarity in bioethics and beyond, this article specifically discusses the role that epistemic solidarity can play in healthcare. It thus focuses, in particular, on solidarity’s (...) relationship with justice and injustice. In this regard, it is argued (1) that justice and solidarity are two equally important and complementary values that should both be considered in healthcare practices and institutions and (2) that solidarity often arises in unjust situations and can be a means to bring about justice. I transfer these ‘general’ insights about solidarity to knowledge practices in healthcare and link them to the discussion about epistemic injustices in healthcare and how to overcome them. I argue that epistemic solidarity can play an important role in overcoming epistemic injustices as well as—and independently from its contribution to justice—in knowledge production in medicine more generally. To demonstrate how epistemic solidarity can add to our understanding of collective knowledge practices, I discuss two examples: patients sharing their medical data for research purposes and healthcare professionals’ engagement with patients to better understand their afflictions. (shrink)

This book is the first complete study of the translations of Machiavelli's Prince made in Europe and the Mediterranean countries during the period from the sixteenth to the first half of the nineteenth century: the first, unpublished French translation by Jacques de Vintimille (1546), the first Latin translation by Silvestro Tegli (1560), as well as the first translations in Dutch (1615), German (1692), Swedish (1757) and Arabic (1824). The first translation produced in Spain - dated somewhere between the end (...) of the sixteenth and the early seventeenth century - remained in manuscript form, while there was a second vernacular Spanish version around 1680. The situation in Great Britain was different from the rest of Europe, as it could boast four manuscript translations by the end of the sixteenth century. (shrink)

Buddhism in a Dark Age: Cambodian Monks under Pol Pot, by Ian Harris, is a natural follow-up to Harris’s 2005 work, Cambodian Buddhism: History and Practice, also published by the University of Hawai‘i Press. The present work, like the earlier one, is primarily focused on the social and political history of Cambodian Buddhism and expands on the final two chapters of that earlier work in that it deals with Buddhism in Democratic Kampuchea from 1975 to 1979 and the aftermath (...) of Khmer Rouge control. Both works are heavily dependent on French-and English-language secondary sources and periodicals, with Khmer-language sources used infrequently. Buddhism in a Dark Age is, however, a very different book than Cambodian... (shrink)

This paper describes the approach of empirical ethics, a form of ethics that integrates non-positivist ethnographic empirical research and philosophy. Empirical ethics as it is discussed here builds on the ‘empirical turn’ in epistemology. It radicalizes the relational approach that care ethics introduced to think about care between people by drawing in relations between people and technologies as things people relate to. Empirical ethics studies care practices by analysing their intra-normativity, or the ways of living together the actors within these (...) practices strive for or bring about as good practices. Different from care ethics, what care is and if it is good is not defined beforehand. A care practice may be contested by comparing it to alternative practices with different notions of good care. By contrasting practices as different ways of living together that are normatively oriented, suggestions for the best possible care may be argued for. Whether these suggestions will actually be put to practice is, however, again a relational question; new actors need to re-localize suggestions, to make them work in new practices and fit them in with local intra-normativities with their particular routines, material infrastructures, know-how and strivings. (shrink)

In this highly accessible book, a distinguished philosopher says current focus on the brain conceals the real powers of the mind. Edward Pols revisits one of the basic topics of philosophy: what is the distinction between mind and body and what is the relation between them? He disagrees fundamentally with the many contemporary philosophers who concentrate on the findings of neurophysiology and cognitive science and so look only to the brain for the causes and explanation of mind. Pols concedes the (...) importance of such scientific studies but maintains that they focus on the infrastructure of mind and ignore the momentous difference between the infrastructure and mind itself. Pols calls upon the reader to attend to mind itself as a concrete and experientially available reality. This kind of attention, he argues persuasively, reveals mind to be at once causally dependent on the brain and causally effective on the physical processes of the brain and the world. Pols also examines the hierarchical view of mind and causality first proposed by Plato and Aristotle, the supersession of that view by the received scientific doctrine of causality, and the mistaken denial of the power of the mind to know an independent reality—a denial that resulted from the philosophical doctrines about knowing developed in the era that began with Descartes and ended with Kant. (shrink)

Science and technology studies concerned with the study of lay influence on the sciences usually analyze either the political or the normative epistemological consequences of lay interference. Here I frame the relation between patients, knowledge, and the sciences by opening up the question: How can we articulate the knowledge that patients develop and use in their daily lives and make it transferable and useful to others, or, `turn it into science’? Elsewhere, patient knowledge is analyzed either as essentially different (...) class='Hi'>from or similar to medical knowledge. The category of experiential knowledge is vague and is used to encompass many types of experience, whereas the knowledge of the `expert patient’ may be assumed to have the shape of up-to-date medical information. This paper shows through a case study of people with severe lung disease that patient knowledge can be understood as a form of practical knowledge that patients use to translate medical and technical knowledge into something useful to their daily life with disease. Patients coordinate this with homegrown know-how and advice from fellow patients, weighing different values - of which `taking good care of one’s body’ is but one - that may conflict in a specific situation. These practices result in sets of techniques that may be made useful to others. The paper argues for two alternatives to state-of-the-art medical research to turn patient knowledge into science: ethnographies of knowledge practices and the collection and making accessible of techniques. (shrink)

Direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) of prescription drugs has been a heavily contested issue over the past decade, touching on several issues of responsibility facing the pharmaceutical industry. Much research has been conducted on DTCA, but hardly any studies have discussed this topic from a corporate social responsibility (CSR) perspective. In this article, we use several elements of CSR, emphasising consumer autonomy and safety, to analyse differences in DTCA practices within two different policy contexts, the United States of America and the (...) European Union (EU). Doing so results in an alternative analysis of the struggle between proponents and opponents of DTCA from a CSR perspective, adding an alternative view on this debate. (shrink)

The “patient perspective” serves as an analytical tool to present patients as knowing subjects in research, rather than as objects known by medicine. This paper analyses problems encountered with the concept of the patient perspective as applied to long-term mental health care. One problem is that “having a perspective” requires a perception of oneself as an individual and the ability to represent one’s individual situation in language; this excludes from research patients who do not express themselves verbally. Another problem (...) is that the idea of “talk” as a representation of the world ignores the fact that talk is also performative in the world: it requires, at least, the ability to deal with an interview situation. To think up alternative ways of including patients as subjects in research, I develop an approach that takes this performativity as a starting point. Analysing practical situations and activities, I argue that patients enact appreciations, making known what they like or dislike by verbal or non-verbal means in a given material environment, in situations that are co-produced by others. Thus, subjectivity is linked to situations and interactions, rather than just to individual characteristics; to “patient positions,” rather than “patient perspectives.”. (shrink)

BackgroundThe emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine has prompted the development of numerous ethical guidelines, while the involvement of patients in the creation of these documents lags behind. As part of the European PROFID project we explore patient perspectives on the ethical implications of AI in care for patients at increased risk of sudden cardiac death (SCD).AimExplore perspectives of patients on the ethical use of AI, particularly in clinical decision-making regarding the implantation of an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD).MethodsSemi-structured, future scenario-based (...) interviews were conducted among patients who had either an ICD and/or a heart condition with increased risk of SCD in Germany (n = 9) and the Netherlands (n = 15). We used the principles of the European Commission’s Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI to structure the interviews.ResultsSix themes arose from the interviews: the ability of AI to rectify human doctors’ limitations; the objectivity of data; whether AI can serve as second opinion; AI explainability and patient trust; the importance of the ‘human touch’; and the personalization of care. Overall, our results reveal a strong desire among patients for more personalized and patient-centered care in the context of ICD implantation. Participants in our study express significant concerns about the further loss of the ‘human touch’ in healthcare when AI is introduced in clinical settings. They believe that this aspect of care is currently inadequately recognized in clinical practice. Participants attribute to doctors the responsibility of evaluating AI recommendations for clinical relevance and aligning them with patients’ individual contexts and values, in consultation with the patient.ConclusionThe ‘human touch’ patients exclusively ascribe to human medical practitioners extends beyond sympathy and kindness, and has clinical relevance in medical decision-making. Because this cannot be replaced by AI, we suggest that normative research into the ‘right to a human doctor’ is needed. Furthermore, policies on patient-centered AI integration in clinical practice should encompass the ethics of everyday practice rather than only principle-based ethics. We suggest that an empirical ethics approach grounded in ethnographic research is exceptionally well-suited to pave the way forward. (shrink)

The topic may initially suggest that massive reductionism is pursued with it. Why this is not the case, can be explained as follows: 'Dictatorship of the proletariat', 'bureaucracy' and 'bureaucratization' are key terms through which new aspects, facts and connections of the questions about socialism can be opened again and again.

I defend the view that charity in interpretation is both an epistemic and a moral virtue. In the first part, I examine Donald Davidson’s version of his principle of charity and question his ascription of beliefs by raising a phenomenological objection: beliefs themselves, before being ascribed, need to be interpreted when interpreters and the subjects they try to understand do not share the same cultural and historical background. In the second section, I examine the notion of epistemic virtue as discussed (...) in virtue epistemology and question whether an epistemic virtue can be completely separated from a moral virtue. In the third section, I show how Gregory the Great, Father of the Church and Pope in the 6th century, understands the virtue of charity in interpretation not as a motivation but as an attraction to the good so that the interpreter is not only a technician producing an interpretation but a moral agent acting in a community. (shrink)

Karl‐Otto Apel entertains a relationship with hermeneutics that is both somewhat marginal, because he does not consider himself part of the movement, and somewhat fundamental, because he has been deeply influenced by it and tries to retain the key acquisitions of hermeneutics while striving toward a transcendental project. While his first important work deals with how language has been treated in the tradition from Dante to Vico, his main work of 1973 involves, as the title states, a “transformation of (...) philosophy” and challenges three language‐centered movements: those of Wittgenstein (language as mirror of the world and the philosophy of language games), Heidegger (philosophical hermeneutics), and Peirce (American pragmatism). The transcendental dimension of language as a corporeal a priori manifests itself in validity claims. The transformation of philosophy Apel initiated was in large part a rethinking of hermeneutic philosophy along the lines of Anglo‐American philosophy. (shrink)

How do technologies such as webcams influence health care and what concepts may describe this? This article explores the literature and analyses what people looking through webcams do within a particular health care practice in the Netherlands, that is, within the rehabilitation of people suffering from severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or asthma. Several ways to describe the activities webcams support and perform are identified. The webcam is concentrating the activities of its users, by making them focus on the (...) task at hand and magnifies the characteristics of the already existing relationships between webcam users by imposing a relational distance that fits best with intimate contacts. Although webcams shift notions of space and distance, their working appears to be related, to a great extent, to their location. (shrink)

The project consists of editing and translating fifty-four essays by the German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002) in three volumes. The editors and translators have selected and organized these essays of the Gesammelte Werke (‘Complete Works’) published by J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck) in Tübingen (from 1986 to 1995) in three volumes. These three volumes will complete the translation of Gadamer into English.

As a response to the common criticism that phenomenology is handicapped by its descriptive faith, this article outlines a program for showing what a rational justification can be from a phenomenological perspective. The phenomenological position defended here stands between Rorty's thesis of objectivity in solidarity and Habermas's view of rationality through universal claims. In the first part of the article, I show how a justification of a stance, an action, or a behavior can only make appeal to standards and (...) criteria which derive from a culture; in the second part, I argue that, since justification involves the making of claims, a claim makes both its author and its community accountable and liable for what is claimed; the third part shows how the encounter between cultures and communities exerts a greater scrutiny on claims made in one culture or community, thereby leading to progress in the justification process. Key Words: deconstruction • justification • phenomenology • relativism • validity claims. (shrink)

Bringing together leading scholars from across the world, this is a comprehensive survey of the latest phenomenological research into the perennial philosophical problem of ‘truth'.Starting with an historical introduction chronicling the variations on truth at play in the Phenomenological tradition, the book explores how Husserl's methodology equips us with the tools to thoroughly explore notions of truth, reality and knowledge. From these foundations, the book goes on to explore and extend the range of approaches that contemporary phenomenological research (...) opens up in the face of the most profound ontological and epistemological questions raised by the tradition. In the final section, the authors go further still and explore how phenomenology relates to other variations on truth offered up by hermeneutic, deconstructive and narrative approaches.Across the 12 essays collected in this volume, Variations on Truth explores and maps a comprehensive and rigorous alternative to mainstream analytic discussions of truth, reality and understanding. (shrink)

Diuina Eloquia cum Legente Crescunt Does Gregory the Great Mean a Subjective or an Objective Growth? - ABSTRACT: The article offers a new account of the famous statement by Gregory the Great that the text of the Bible grows with the reader. While most commentators understand this as a subjective growth of the reader enriched through reading, few give an account of the objective growth, namely, that the text itself grows. By focusing on the Homilies on Ezekiel and using at (...) times the Morals on the Book of Job, I link the statement diuina eloquia cum legente crescunt to Gregory’s use of the different senses of the Bible and show that the statement means not only a subjective growth of the reader, but also an objective growth of the text. Such a mutual growth takes the form of a cooperation between text and reader. It is from within such cooperation that the senses of the biblical text have to be found and understood. The literal meaning is thus foundational, as the basis for the other senses, but only within the cooperation, since readers must know in advance of what the literal meaning is the foundation. Seen from the perspective of the cooperation, however, the literal meaning is rather what the allegorical understanding takes as its foundation, in which perspective the allegorical understanding comes first. (shrink)

Certification for biofuels has been developed to ensure that biofuel production methods adhere to social and environmental sustainability standards. As such, requiring biofuel production to be certified has become part of EU policy through the 2009 renewable energy directive, that aims to promote energy security, reduce emissions and promote rural development. According to the EU RED, in 2020 10 % of our transport energy should come from renewable sources, most of which are expected to be biofuels. In this paper (...) I examine what biofuel certificates are, what they can achieve and what their limitations are. Methodologically, I will evaluate them using the standards of instrumental, practical and communicative rationality. With regard to instrumental rationality, I conclude that the EU RED makes an important but unjustified assumption in demanding certified biofuels for its target: that if biofuel production is sustainable, then biofuel use is too. I also argue that, where the EU assumes that biofuel certification is a sufficient means to achieve the EU RED’s goals, it is at best an insufficient means and at worst not a means at all towards achieving these goals. With regard to practical rationality, I argue that more attention needs to be paid to trade-offs between different goals in the EU RED, particularly with regard to providing investor security and not capping transport energy consumption. With regard to communicative rationality, I argue that the policy-making process of the EU RED has been seriously flawed, and that certification development processes also can improve significantly. (shrink)

COUNTERREVOLUTIONARY RESPONSES to the twentieth-century revolution in logic have usually started from the assumption that there is in fact a body of theory for which the name 'extensional logic' is appropriate. Debate has centered not on that assumption but rather on such questions as whether that logic includes every important feature that belongs in a proper logic and whether it excludes all features that should be excluded from that ordered realm. Revisionist logicians have usually supposed that extensional logic, (...) for all its power and versatility, does not express the tight bond between meanings that is of the very essence of the logical connection; and they have labored to provide an alternative intensional logic that does indeed express it. (shrink)

THERE would appear to be no philosophical consensus about the nature of human action, even though discussion of that ancient topic has intensified in the last two decades. I shall nevertheless ask the reader to suppose that the question has at last been settled in its main lines, and settled in a way I shall describe in a moment. The supposition I have in mind is no light matter. The universe it envisions is radically different from what it would (...) be if some other supposition were in its place. A detailed justification of it would require a thoroughgoing reassessment of many of the notions about causality that have prevailed in this century. Though I have offered something of that kind in earlier writings, the most I can hope to do here is to state the supposition in as brief, vivid, and concrete a way as I can manage. After that I shall ask what view of the rational agent it leads us to. No matter how action itself is interpreted, common sense attributes action to an agent. If the actions are those that take place in an atmosphere of rational discourse, it is natural to think of the agent as a rational one. Do we have any right to make this attribution in any way more exacting than that of common sense? Precisely what ontological status does the rational agent have? What, in particular, are we to make of its self-identity, seeing that some actions seem to modify the self-identity in which in a prima facie sense they originate? (shrink)

FOR THE GREATER part of this century a certain dogmatic complex of analytic-linguistic philosophy has prevented philosophers of that persuasion from acknowledging the real foundation question. It has been taken for granted instead that the foundation question begins and ends with the fate of what has come to be called, in the last two decades, foundationalism. If the thesis of this essay should prove persuasive, it will reinforce the dominant conviction that foundationalism is unacceptable. But that is only incidental (...) to my purpose. It is, however, essential to my purpose that two component dogmas of the complex are also principles of foundationalism. It will therefore be convenient to have before us the principles that appear to be common to the various versions of foundationalism: knowledge is a matter of justified true belief; knowledge consists of a system of propositions, and it is therefore these in which the knower has justified true belief; the justification of some of the propositions is direct, or immediate, and these are the foundational ones; the justification of the rest of the propositions is mediated by the foundational ones and so is indirect. (shrink)

Stakeholder involvement in design is desirable from both a practical and an ethical point of view. It is difficult to do well, however, and some problems recur again and again, both of a practical nature, e.g. stakeholders acting strategically rather than openly, and of an ethical nature, e.g. power imbalances unduly affecting the outcome of the process. Hidden Design has been proposed as a method to deal with the practical problems of stakeholder involvement. It aims to do so by (...) taking the observation of stakeholder actions, rather than the outcomes of a deliberative process, as its input. Furthermore, it hides from stakeholders the fact that a design process is taking place so that they will not behave differently than they otherwise would. Both aspects of Hidden Design have raised ethical worries. In this paper I make an ethical analysis of what it means for a design process to leave participants uninformed or deceived rather than acquiring their informed consent beforehand, and to use observation of actions rather than deliberation as input for design, using Hidden Design as a case study. This analysis is based on two sets of normative guidelines: the ethical guidelines for psychological research involving deception or uninformed participants from two professional psychological organisations, and Habermasian norms for a fair and just process. It supports the conclusion that stakeholder involvement in design organised in this way can be ethically acceptable, though under a number of conditions and constraints. (shrink)

THE PHILOSOPHIC POSITION of which this essay is a partial expression shows science to be realistic in certain circumstances and antirealistic in others. But the position is not so irenic as this beginning might suggest. For one thing, the realism upon which this view of science depends, which I call radical realism, is different from any of the versions proposed over the years by the forces of realism in that controversy. For another, the antirealism envisioned for some of the (...) multiform occasions of science is not in the least a version of the well-known antirealism of the linguistic consensus but rather a modified antirealism that paradoxically depends for its clarity and force on that same radical realism. I have given some account of radical realism in earlier papers and books, but its full application to science is left for a forthcoming book. The present paper makes the point that it is impossible to reach a just settlement of the realism vs antirealism case--whether construed narrowly, as an issue for philosophy of science, or broadly, as an issue for the entire rational enterprise--if it is tried in the venue of the linguistic consensus. (shrink)

In this essay I will assume that all well-developed discussions of the authenticity of responsibility are metaphysical ones. But as I intend to make use of the notion of being at a number of crucial points, I will call responsibility ontic responsibility rather than metaphysical responsibility. If ontic responsibility should be authentic, both social responsibility and its most important particular instance, legal responsibility, will be qualified by it, and we shall not be able to capture their full meaning in terms (...) of de facto accountability. As for moral responsibility, its status will also depend upon whether or not ontic responsibility is authentic. Indeed, many readers might prefer to say that "ontic responsibility" is simply another name for moral responsibility--that the question whether we are so constituted in our ontological natures as to make accountability appropriate, just, and seemly is merely the question whether moral responsibility is authentic. But there are some grounds for thinking that ontic responsibility is a wider category and that, if it is authentic, moral responsibility is a special case of it--ontic responsibility exercised in certain well-defined and very important circumstances. It is clear, for instance, that ontic responsibility covers all acts whatsoever, or at least all acts that admit of degree of excellence, so that all our work in science, in the arts, and indeed in the entire practical-productive sphere comes under it. Thus, all Max Planck's work in science from his 1879 doctoral dissertation to his famous 1900 paper would exemplify it. But most of us would probably say that only some of the ontically responsible acts performed in the course of his scientific work were also instances of moral responsibility--perhaps only those which involved relations with other persons. At any rate, in this essay I will assume that, if ontic responsibility is authentic, moral responsibility is a special case of it. It will be clear, then, that we want the notion of ontic responsibility to function in many of the ways in which the notion of free will functions in other settings. We shall see that there is some advantage in thus avoiding that vexed notion in what follows. (shrink)

Say your name aloud to yourself in a quiet room. Imagine peeling an apple in your mind. Take the subway without trying to get anywhere. The simple meditations in this book have the potential to shake us awake from our preconceived certainties: our own identity, the stability of the outside world, the meanings of words. At once entertaining and startling, irreverent and wise, this book will provoke moments of awareness for readers in any situation and in all walks of (...) life. Enter the space of your favorite painting. Watch someone sleeping. The world won't look the same again. (shrink)

Direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) of prescription drugs has been a heavily contested issue over the past decade, touching on several issues of responsibility facing the pharmaceutical industry. Much research has been conducted on DTCA, but hardly any studies have discussed this topic from a corporate social responsibility (CSR) perspective. In this article, we use several elements of CSR, emphasising consumer autonomy and safety, to analyse differences in DTCA practices within two different policy contexts, the United States of America and the (...) European Union (EU). Doing so results in an alternative analysis of the struggle between proponents and opponents of DTCA from a CSR perspective, adding an alternative view on this debate. (shrink)

A worldwide survey on the place that philosophy occupies in education and culture, based on a large number of documents from dozens of countries and proposals put forward in various international fora. Its main conclusion: although the teaching of philosophy is highly praised in principle, it is neglected in practice. But in an increasingly interdependent and fragmented world, a sound philosophical education is inseparably linked to the issue of freedom. Publie egalement en franais: Philosophie et democratie dans le monde (...) Publicado tambien en espanol: Filosofia y democracia en el mundo. (shrink)

There are roughly two meanings attached to the concept of dignity: humanitas and dignitas. Humanitas refers to ethical and juridical notions of equality, autonomy and freedom. Much less understood is the meaning of dignitas, which this paper develops as peoples’ engagement with aesthetic values and genres, and hence with differences between people. Departing from a critical reading of Georgio Agamben’s notion of ‘bare life’, I will analyze a case where aesthetics are quite literally at stake: women who lost their (...) hair due to cancer treatment. The analysis shows a complicated interplay between varying evaluations of female baldness by the self and others, mediated by (often strongly negative) cultural imaginaries, and aesthetic genres depicting conventional ways of ‘looking good’. The paper concludes by arguing for a reconnection of the two notions of dignity, and for a rehabilitation of aesthetics in daily life and care as fundamental values for organizing our societies. (shrink)

Humility is increasingly recognized as an essential attribute for individuals at top management levels to build successful organizations. However, research on CEO humility has focused on how humble chief executive officers (CEOs) shape collective perceptions through their interactions and behaviors with other organizational members while overlooking CEOs’ critical role in making strategic decisions. We address this unexplored aspect of CEO humility by proposing that humble CEOs influence decision-making decentralization at the top management team (TMT) and subsequently promote an organizational ethical (...) culture. Using a sample of CEOs and TMT members from 120 small- and medium-sized enterprises, we find strong support for our hypotheses. We discuss important implications for research on CEO humility and strategic leadership. (shrink)

In the introduction to hisAllgemeine Psychopathologie, published in 1913, Karl Jaspers stated that psychology has little value for the psychopathologist because it focuses on all kinds of interesting matters, but not on normal psychic life. In this article we argue that today, in the year 2013, little has changed in this respect. During the past century, normal psychic life has rarely been a topic of research. Clinical psychology has focused primarily on studying three other topics: the mind-body problem, the methodological (...) debate and the psychotherapy debate. Due to this focus, our knowledge in the above-mentioned areas has increased significantly, but the issue raised by Karl Jaspers about normal psychic life has still not been addressed. In this article, we propose that normal psychic life should indeed become the new focus of clinical psychology. We illustrate the importance of this new focus with three examples from clinical psychology: the Global Assessment of Functioning scale, empathy and the emergence of positive psychology during the past decade. We then explore the efficacy of phenomenology for studying this normal psychic life, thereby discovering a useful epistemological basis in Husserl’s systematic phenomenology. Various phenomenological research methods are evaluated in the light of this systematic phenomenology. (shrink)

The general theme of this book is action, so I begin by contrasting two past approaches to action. The first accepts the arena of common sense: the arena in which the term “action” had its first use—and it focuses on what is available in that arena by virtue of the deployment of our rational awareness toward the prima facie level of action. This approach does not feel obliged to regard what is found in that prima facie level as phenomenal. The (...) telic nature of action, for instance, is accepted as what it purports to be rather than taken as something that needs to be explained and even explained away. The ontology of this approach is one of entities/beings that act, and actions are given an explanatory value, as when, for instance, we ascribe some scientific discovery or some work of art to the action of some scientist or artist. This approach is compatible with the ancient notion that, as causes, rational agents are rooted in a transcendent causal/formative power. The other approach, of which analytic action theory is a case in point, regards supposed rational acts as something that awaits explanation by the methods of science or by such philosophical methods as take science as their guide. Most of its practitioners incline toward this or that version of reductionism. Thus, although action theorists regard prima facie intentions, volitions, and the like as an important way of distinguishing actions from other kinds of events, they tend to suppress the telic aspect of an intention in favor of a causal account in which the intention is regarded as an event that stands at the start of a linked series of events understood in terms of efficient causality; and in which the mental aspect of the intention is dismissed by making it identical with, epiphenomenal upon, supervenient upon, or realized in some physical event or events. (shrink)

"This book," the author tells us in his introduction, "rests on two supports, on the thought of Husserl and on the moral philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. We will use issues from classical moral philosophy, issues such as deliberation, choice, character, and action, as a kind of magnet to draw out potentials in Husserl's thought that have not yet been actualized. At the same time we will use the superbly rigorous technique and the powerful insights found in Husserl's writing (...) to refresh the ancient understanding of human conduct". By this point Sokolowski has already introduced the Husserlian terms 'intentionality', 'categoriality', and 'constitute', which roughly define that portion of Husserl's thought he will draw upon. (shrink)

In this book the author collects a number of "phenomenological studies of various kinds of intentionality" written over the years since the appearance of his Presence and Absence: A Philosophical Investigation of Language and Being. He thinks of that book as a very formal one, and hopes to show in this one how Husserl's style of philosophical thinking illuminates "a range of diverse and more concrete phenomena". Although the book is thus frankly about appearances, the author makes the important reservation (...) that "the things that are can also seem to be as they are"; in that sense he conceives of the project as "a venture into the question of being and a clarification of what we are". Sokolowski sets out to "describe a form of appearance" in each essay, but he supposes that being is the "origin of these forms"; that they are "forms through which being is diffracted at some distance from itself". One wonders, in the case of things that are and "seem to be as they are," whether this diffraction does not take place at all or takes place very close to being. Where the category of appearance plays so dominant a role as it does in phenomenology, the relation between appearance and being is always troublesome: where everything is in some sense appearance, how shall we sort out the things that are what they seem from the things that are seemings and nothing but seemings? (shrink)

The author of this substantial and illuminating book believes that philosophy consists in conceptual analysis, or at least that the appropriate method of philosophy is conceptual analysis, which he does not equate with linguistic analysis. It is the philosopher's job "to attempt to clarify concepts, to attempt to weigh up arguments, and above all, to attempt to discover the presuppositions involved in the vocabularies of the doctrines themselves". Although Shalom acknowledges his indebtedness to Collingwood for this view of philosophy, his (...) own view of the philosopher's interest in presuppositions includes the "justification or invalidation" of presuppositions no less than the discovery and clarification of them. In this he clearly differs from the historicism of Collingwood. (shrink)

This essay is a response to proposals to integrate patient-subjective or idiographic data into future versions of nosologies such as the DSM and the ICD. It argues that a nosology is not a suitable vehicle for disseminating psychopathological-phenomenological research results throughout the field. Drawing on the work of Ludwig Binswanger, it examines, on the basis of four postulates, how he applies the Husserlian concept of intentionality in psychiatry and thus arrives at a psychopathological phenomenology. For each individual postulate, we then (...) look in depth at the implications for the current debate around DSM. The conclusion we come to is that, both because of the objective of phenomenological research and because of the complexity of the kind of information involved in findings based on that research, it is impossible to integrate these findings into a nosology without deviating from either them or the nosology itself. (shrink)

The EDPS Ethics Advisory Group (EAG) has carried out its work against the backdrop of two significant social-political moments: a growing interest in ethical issues, both in the public and in the private spheres and the imminent entry into force of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in May 2018. For some, this may nourish a perception that the work of the EAG represents a challenge to data protection professionals, particularly to lawyers in the field, as well as to companies (...) struggling to adapt their processes and routines to the requirements of the GDPR. What is the purpose of a report on digital ethics, if the GDPR already provides all regulatory requirements to protect European citizens with regard to the processing of their personal data? Does the existence of this EAG mean that a new normative ethics of data protection will be expected to fill regulatory gaps in data protection law with more flexible, and thus less easily enforceable ethical rules? Does the work of the EAG signal a weakening of the foundation of legal doctrine, such as the rule of law, the theory of justice, or the fundamental values supporting human rights, and a strengthening of a more cultural approach to data protection? Not at all. The reflections of the EAG contained in this report are not intended as the continuation of policy by other means. It neither supersedes nor supplements the law or the work of legal practitioners. Its aims and means are different. On the one hand, the report seeks to map and analyse current and future paradigm shifts which are characterised by a general shift from analogue experience of human life to a digital one. On the other hand, and in light of this shift, it seeks to re-evaluate our understanding of the fundamental values most crucial to the well-being of people, those taken for granted in a data-driven society and those most at risk. The objective of this report is thus not to generate definitive answers, nor to articulate new norms for present and future digital societies but to identify and describe the most crucial questions for the urgent conversation to come. This requires a conversation between legislators and data protection experts, but also society at large - because the issues identified in this report concern us all, not only as citizens but also as individuals. They concern us in our daily lives, whether at home or at work and there isn’t a place we could travel to where they would cease to concern us as members of the human species. (shrink)

Classroom discussion is frequently proposes as an essential part of democratic citizenship education. Literature, however, pays little attention to what kind of discussion is most effective and how teachers can facilitate a discussion. This study aims to contribute to the development of a framework for analysing the characteristics of classroom discussions and the different roles teachers can adopt in guiding a discussion on controversial issues. In addition, we investigated how the way teachers guide the discussion is related to the structure (...) and content features of the discussion. The framework was used to analyse five classroom discussions in secondary education. Our framework appeared to be useful for revealing differences in the structure and content features of the classroom discussions and in the way teachers guide the discussion. The results also indicated that a high degree of teacher regulation was related to high content quality and more participation from students. A high degree of stu... (shrink)

Background Biomedical and ethnographic studies among indigenous people are common practice in health and geographical research. Prior health research misconduct has been documented, particularly when obtaining genetic material. The objective of this study was to crossmatch previously published data with the perceptions of the Waorani peoples about the trading of their genetic material and other biological samples. Methods We conducted a mixed methods study design using a tailored 15-item questionnaire in 72 participants and in-depth interviews in 55 participants belonging to (...) 20 Waorani communities about their experiences and perceptions of participating in biomedical research projects. Additionally, we conducted a systematic review of the literature in order to crossmatch the published results of studies stating the approval of an ethics committee and individual consent within their work. Results A total of 40 men and 32 women, with a mean age of 57 ± 15 years agreed to be interviewed for inclusion. Five main categories around the violation of good clinical practices were identified, concerning the obtention of blood samples from a recently contacted Waorani native community within the Amazonian region of Ecuador. These themes are related to the lack of adequate communication between community members and researchers as well as the voluntariness to participate in health research. Additionally, over 40 years, a total of 38 manuscripts related to the use of biological samples in Waorani indigenous people were published. The majority of the studies did not state within their article obtaining research ethics board approval, and 71% did not report obtaining the informed consent of the participants prior to the execution of the project. Conclusion Clinical Research on the Waorani community in the Ecuadorian Amazon basin has been performed on several occasions. Unfortunately, the majority of these projects did not follow the appropriate ethical and professional standards in either reporting the results or fulfilling them. The results of our investigation suggest that biological material, including genetic material, has been used by researchers globally, with some omitting the minimum information required to guarantee transparency and good clinical practices. We highlight the importance of stating ethics within research to avoid breaches in research transparency. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Rethinking Utopia and Utopianism by Lyman Tower SargentWilliam James MetcalfLyman Tower Sargent. Rethinking Utopia and Utopianism. Ralahine Utopian Studies 26. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2022. 412 pp. Softcover, US$61, £53, €40. ISBN 978-1-80079-489-4.In the field of utopian studies, Lyman Tower Sargent is well known and respected globally. His new book, Rethinking Utopia and Utopianism, is well written, witty, and persuasively argued, reflecting on, and updating, his life’s [End Page (...) 137] work. It includes several previously published pieces, such as Sargent’s oft-cited “The Three Faces of Utopianism Revisited” (1994), along with his current thinking across the broad field of utopian studies.Sargent admits to naiveté when, as a young scholar in the 1960s, he set out to write a “history of utopian literature”—probably thinking it wouldn’t take long! This field, he soon found, ever expands the more one looks. Sargent continues to look for, and discover, examples from around the world—many of which he has made available online in Utopian Literature in English: An Annotated Bibliography from 1516 to the Present.1 But now, at eighty-two years of age, he accepts that this project will require “quite a few lifetimes, lifetimes that are not available to me, so I hope that others will take up these topics” (349).Sargent thinks utopianism is best understood as “social dreaming—the dreams and nightmares that concern the ways in which groups of people arrange their lives and which usually involve a radically different society” (7). Utopia, he points out, “expresses deep-seated needs, desires and hopes” (42). This, he asserts, is a universal phenomenon—part of being human—certainly not confined to the Western Christian tradition, as some scholars have argued.We must be careful, Sargent warns, not to equate utopia with perfection; utopias are about betterment, not perfection. He argues that equating utopia with perfection is a ruse employed “by those opposed to the idea that human beings can bring about significant social change and is intended to undermine that possibility” (323). Sargent argues that all humans “need the idea that a better life is possible” (325) and this is what utopianism provides.As someone who has spent much of my professional life studying intentional communities, I have always recognized that almost all such groups have an underlying utopian impulse. So I came to utopianism research as a subset of intentional communities research. Sargent, on the other hand, sees “communitarianism as a sub-category of utopianism” (85). He acknowledges that intentional community members are “trying to find better ways of living together, making decisions about all important aspects of life, whether it is political, economic, religious, or sexual.... They are actually doing with their own lives what literary utopias describe in words” (93). Perhaps our different paths are a bit like asking whether the chicken or egg came first?Sargent quite correctly observes that many intentional community members reject the label of “utopian” because they confuse it with the naïve, and unobtainable notion of perfection—and I have often observed the same. Nevertheless Sargent asserts “that continued utopian thinking is essential to the overcoming of [End Page 138] the dystopian reality of... the last century” (178). This, he argues, is why intentional communities are important test sites for enacting utopian dreams.In discussing dystopia, Sargent points out how utopian aspirations occasionally lead to the creation of dystopias. “The hopes of communism became the dystopia of Stalinism.... The utopian dreams of Pol Pot became the dystopia of Kampuchea” (172). “Utopian visions from Lenin to the Taliban that purported to have the potential of producing an enhanced life have been hijacked and turned into dystopias” (175). While acknowledging that some colonization schemes, particularly for New Zealand and South Australia, had a utopian angle, nevertheless those schemes generally created dystopia for the Indigenous peoples. “The original inhabitants’” idea of the good life “inconveniently did not include having their land stolen, being enslaved, and being slaughtered” (262).That reminds us that utopianism, like beauty, lies in the eye of the beholder. Sargent offers a wonderful personal example, “my utopia would include a strong right to die” whenever and however he... (shrink)

This paper will examine the concrete appropriation of Leninism in the Philippine communist movement. It will further trace the triadic convergence between Leninism, the Philippine Revolution, and Badiouian emancipatory politics. It will argue that three essential Leninist concepts are appropriated by the current Philippine Revolution: the vanguard party, the basic alliance of the peasants and the workers, and the united front work. It will also discuss Badiouian emancipatory politics, and particularly highlight Badiou’s treatment on the question of organization or the (...) party of the new type vis-à-vis the need to wage emancipatory struggles against neoliberal capitalism. The paper will conclude by positing three crucial points as necessary for an emancipatory politics: evental rupture with the state, reconstitution of the organization or party of a new type as a political necessity, and the recognition and forging of a broader revolutionary unity with other sites of oppression. (shrink)

The history of aluminum’s transformation from a precious to a commonplace metal over the course of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries has frequently been told as a narrative about intrepid western chemists, whose discoveries made it possible for industrialized manufacturers to make the metal global. This paper questions both the singularity of that discovery and the inevitability of aluminum’s global dominance as a ‘modern’ material of manufacture. It does so by considering the history of aluminum in West Africa (...) and the ways in which artisans in that region domesticated the substance to an artisanal mode of production and developed quotidian chemical knowledge of it in the process. Considering aluminum from the perspective of West Africa suggests that aluminum may not have been discovered once, but many times, and that everyday material engagements can inspire forms of chemical knowhow that operate well beyond the bounds of the laboratory and industrial manufacturing plant. (shrink)