Name der Zeitschrift: Internationales Jahrbuch für philosophische Anthropologie Jahrgang: 7 Heft: 1 Seiten: 245-258.

This chapter provides a historical account of the transformation of pregnancy through philosophical theory and legal practice. What has remained seemingly consistent across history, though, is the lack of rights a pregnant woman can enjoy. Whilst it may manifest differently across time and place, unfortunately misogynistic attitudes persist, and this is reflected in the continual degrading of the gestator (and gestation), which is reinforced by certain philosophical theorising and technological advancement. We thus urge caution in making philosophical claims about the (...) epistemic transformation in pregnancy, given the epistemic (and other) injustices already faced by pregnant people. We recognise that there are transformations that occur because of pregnancy, but we argue that there ought not be with respect to the pregnant person's autonomy, agency, and control over their bodies. Through an analysis of legal cases, we can see that the practice falls out of line with the theory regarding how pregnant people are treated. But perhaps it is both the theory and the practice that need to change so as to bring them in line. How we theorise about pregnancy is intertwined with our cultural views, our technological advancements, and our medical and legal practices, requiring multi-disciplinary study for a more holistic overview. In this chapter, we contribute to this endeavour by bringing some such strands together, regarding the transformation that pregnancy is, that pregnancy makes, and that pregnancy has had historically, in philosophy, and in legal practice. (shrink)

edition (unseen), $12.95. traditions, bringing into being new modes of understanding. Paper Anthropology, and particularly ethnography, is torn between two quests, one to capture the diversity of social life and the other to discover universal principles structuring that diversity. Jackson examines these quests within the context of ethnographic fieldwork, focusing on the relationship between ethnographers and the people they study. He is concerned with defining the anthropological project as something more than the projection of the anthropologist's traditions and concerns onto (...) an alien culture. Rather, he would have the project open a genuine dialogue between people from different cultures or Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Emotional and Physical Toll of Anxiety Decluttering the Body and Mind Slowing Down the Breath, Slowing Down the Mind Learning to Live Free of Fear Yoga, a Gateway Drug?

For the first time an award-winning Harvard professor shares the lessons from his wildly popular course on classical Chinese philosophy, showing you how these ancient ideas can guide you on the path to a good life today. The lessons taught by ancient Chinese philosophers surprisingly still apply, and they challenge our fundamental assumptions about how to lead a fulfilled, happy, and successful life. Self-discovery, it turns out, comes through looking outward, not inward. Power comes from holding back. Good relationships come (...) from small gestures. Spontaneity comes from practice. And excellence comes from what you choose to do, not your “natural” abilities. Counterintuitive. Countercultural. Even revolutionary. These powerful ideas have made Professor Michael Puett's course the third most popular at Harvard University in recent years, with enrollment surging every year since it was first offered in 2006. It's clear students are drawn by a bold promise Professor Puett makes on the first day of class: “These ideas will change your life.” Now he offers his course to the world. (shrink)

Sceptical Paths gathers a variety of innovative studies that inquire into the presence and function of sceptical elements, strategies, and approaches in various traditions throughout Ancient, Medieval, Modern, and contemporary philosophy. Special at.

On the Southern border of the United States in 2018, the decision was made to implement a separation policy among refugees and migrant families arriving at the border - and so a group of government employees left their homes, bidding farewell to their families as they went to work, and began to separate hundreds of children from their families, forcefully taking them to holding centres. Developing Hannah Arendt's analysis of the banality of evil, The Path to Mass Evil demonstrates how (...) the most educated, sophisticated, and advanced societies in human history have the potential to turn into an enormous killing machine, implementing mass murder on a vast scale. (shrink)

The human brain has some capabilities that the brains of other animals lack. It is to these distinctive capabilities that our species owes its dominant position. Other animals have stronger muscles or sharper claws, but we have cleverer brains. If machine brains one day come to surpass human brains in general intelligence, then this new superintelligence could become very powerful. As the fate of the gorillas now depends more on us humans than on the gorillas themselves, so the fate of (...) our species then would come to depend on the actions of the machine superintelligence. But we have one advantage: we get to make the first move. Will it be possible to construct a seed AI or otherwise to engineer initial conditions so as to make an intelligence explosion survivable? How could one achieve a controlled detonation? To get closer to an answer to this question, we must make our way through a fascinating landscape of topics and considerations. Read the book and learn about oracles, genies, singletons; about boxing methods, tripwires, and mind crime; about humanity's cosmic endowment and differential technological development; indirect normativity, instrumental convergence, whole brain emulation and technology couplings; Malthusian economics and dystopian evolution; artificial intelligence, and biological cognitive enhancement, and collective intelligence. (shrink)

Is economics always self-corrective? Do erroneous theorems permanently disappear from the market of economic ideas? _Intellectual Path Dependence in Economics _argues that errors in economics are not always corrected. Although economists are often critical and open-minded, unfit explanations are nonetheless able to reproduce themselves. The problem is that theorems sometimes survive the intellectual challenges in the market of economic ideas even when they are falsified or invalidated by criticism and an abundance of counter-evidence. A key question which often gets little (...) or no attention is: why do economists not reject theories when they have been refuted by evidence and falsified by philosophical reasoning? This book explores the answer to this question by examining the phenomenon of intellectual path dependence in the history of economic thought. It argues that the key reason why economists do not reject refuted theories is the epistemic costs of starting to use new theories. Epistemic costs are primarily the costs of scarcity of the most valued element in academic production: time. Epistemic scarcity overwhelmingly dominates the evolution of scientific research in such a way that when researchers start off a new research project, they allocate time between replicable and un-replicable research. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the methodology, philosophy and history of economics. (shrink)

In an historic first, two ethics committees - one from Laos, the other from France - met in Vientiane in October 2015. Researchers examined a multitude of ethical issues related to health, the environment, and societies in countries in the Mekong region. Urgent, universal questions were discussed in local contexts ; productive debates illustrated a complex array of possible solutions. This book, born out of that meeting, serves as a guide for those working across the spectrum of scientific fields on (...) paths to promote justice and reduce suffering. Like the Mekong River, the field of research ethics does not run in a straight line ; and like that river, everyone it touches discovers that what may initially appear to separate us ultimately serves to bring us together. (shrink)

All or nothing? Nature in Chinese thought and the apophatic occident -- Nothing and the poetic making of sense -- Immanence: the last word? -- Universalism, or the nothing that is all -- An extra word on originality -- Intercultural dia-logue and its apophatic interstices -- Analytic table of contents.

Treatise on epistemology, presenting the Dvaita school in Hindu philosophy.

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted a nudge for public–private cooperation in healthcare to rapidly cope with limited resource. However, Vietnam’s historical reliance on a public healthcare system, combined with a traditional emphasis on socialization in the Polanyian sense, hindered the swift integration of the private sector. This research investigates path dependency in Vietnam’s public health sector, using theories including path dependency, Karl Polanyi’s double movement with legal analysis method to analyze the interplay of historical decisions, and socialist policies in healthcare. Recognizing (...) these institutional and market governance flaws, a deeper understanding of the role of law becomes vital in crafting strategies for a more resilient and sustainable healthcare system in Vietnam. In this article, Ho Chi Minh City is chosen as a case study due to its notable mix of public–private healthcare facilities and its status as a leading area in infection cases during the third COVID-19 wave. The article suggests that there should be a change in the way public and private sectors work together, one that is more in line with market-driven solutions which requires solid legal framework for cooperation beyond merely mobilizing resources. (shrink)

First published in German in 1995, volume 77 of Heidegger's Complete Works consists of three imaginary conversations written as World War II was coming to an end. Composed at a crucial moment in history and in Heidegger's own thinking, these conversations present meditations on science and technology; the devastation of nature, the war, and evil; and the possibility of release from representational thinking into a more authentic relation with being and the world. The first conversation involves a scientist, a scholar, (...) and a guide walking together on a country path; the second takes place between a teacher and a tower-warden, and the third features a younger man and an older man in a prisoner-of-war camp in Russia, where Heidegger's two sons were missing in action. Unique because of their conversational style, the lucid and precise translation of these texts offers insight into the issues that engaged Heidegger's wartime and postwar thinking. (shrink)

This book explores the main stages and key concepts in the development of Kant's critical philosophy, from the early 1760s to the 1790s. Karl Ameriks provides a detailed and concise account of the main ways in which the later critical works provide a plausible defense of the conception of humanity's fundamental end that Kant turned to after reading Rousseau in the 1760s. Separate essays are devoted to each of the three Critiques, as well as to earlier notes and lectures and (...) several of Kant's later writings on history and religion. A final section devotes three chapters to post-Kantian developments in German Romanticism, accounts of tragedy up through Nietzsche, and contemporary philosophy. The theme of an elliptical path is shown to be relevant to these writers as well as to many aspects of Kant's own life and work. The topics of the book include fundamental issues in epistemology and metaphysics, with a new defense of the Amerik's 'moderate' interpretation of transcendental idealism. (shrink)

Julius Evola was a renowned Dadaist artist, Idealist philosopher, critic of politics and Fascism, 'mystic, ' anti-modernist, and scholar of world religions. Evola was all of these things, but he saw each of them as no more than stops along the path to life's true goal: the realisation of oneself as a truly absolute and free individual living one's life in accordance with the eternal doctrines of the Primordial Tradition. Much more than an autobiography, The Cinnabar Path in describing the (...) course of Evola's life illuminates how the traditionally-oriented individual might avoid the many pitfalls awaiting him in the modern world. More a record of Evola's thought process than a recitation of biographical facts, one will here find the distilled essence of a lifetime spent in pursuit of wisdom, in what is surely one of his most important works. (shrink)

Proposes the path for understanding human existence developed by M. Merleau-Ponty as a replacement for the paths historically employed by psychology. Descartes established the agenda for modernistic philosophy when he proposed that the task of philosophy is to provide a foundation on which assurances of certain truth can be built. Modernist philosophers diverged, following the paths of sensation and of reason . Postmodernists argue that Descartes's agenda was misguided and that there is no foundation for certain knowledge. They set upon (...) the path of language which led them to the dismissal of the human S. Merleau-Ponty explored the path of the lived body in which thought and extension are intertwined, and along which is located the human S in its temporality and embodiment. The path of embodiment is held to be a more fruitful path than the path of language. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

The literature on indicative conditionals contains two appealing views. The first is the selectional view: on this view, conditionals operate by selecting a single possibility, which is used to evaluate the consequent. The second is the informational view: on this view, conditionals don’t express propositions, but rather impose constraints on information states of speakers. Both views are supported by strong arguments, but they are incompatible on their standard formulations. Hence it appears that we have to choose between mutually exclusive options. (...) But the options are not exclusive. This paper develops a theory of the semantics and assertability of conditionals that is both selectional and informational. The theory vindicates the signature inferences of both selectional and informational theories, including so-called Conditionals Excluded Middle and principles about the interplay between conditionals and ‘might’. It also predicts some interesting and puzzling facts about the assertion of conditionals. (shrink)

For many energy companies in China, green brand strategy is becoming an important approach to enhance competitive advantage. However, greenwashing behaviors result in a crisis of trust. Existing research focuses on green marketing, but is silent on the institutional view of the trust crisis resulting from greenwashing by energy brands. Thus, this study takes a decoupling perspective from institutional theory and considers legitimacy, energy policy management, and green brand theories to shed light on the path from the decoupling of an (...) energy brand from green promise to green energy brand trust and the role of brand legitimacy and brand loyalty. It then analyzes survey data to conclude that DEBG not only has a direct negative effect on GEBT but also has an indirect influence through the vital mediating role of green energy brand legitimacy. Moreover, brand loyalty is a moderating factor and can alleviate the energy brand trust crisis. These findings not only can enrich the theories of energy brand management and green marketing but also offer important implications for energy policy management. (shrink)

A cause may influence its effect via multiple paths. Paradigmatically (Hesslow [1974]), taking birth control pills both decreases one’s risk of thrombosis by preventing pregnancy and increases it by producing a blood chemical. Building on Pearl ([2001]), I explicate the notion of a path-specific effect. Roughly, a path-specific effect of C on E via path P is the degree to which a change in C would change E were they to be transmitted only via P. Facts about such effects may (...) be gleaned from the structural equations commonly used to represent the causal relationships among variables. I contrast my analysis of the Hesslow case with those given by theorists of probabilistic causality, who mistakenly link it to issues of causal heterogeneity, token-causation and indeterminism. The reason probabilistic theories misdiagnose this case is that they pay inadequate attention to the structural relationships among variables. (shrink)

What are counterfactuals and what is their point? In many cases, none at all. It may be true that if kangaroos didn't have tails, they would fall over, but they do have tails and if they didn't they wouldn't be kangaroos (or would they?). This is the sort of thing that can give counterfactuals a bad name, as inhabitants of a La La Land of the mind. On the other hand, counterfactuals do useful service across a broad range of disciplines (...) in both the sciences and the humanities, including philosophy, history, cosmology, biology, cognitive psychology, jurisprudence, economics, art history, literary theory. They are also richly, albeit sometimes treacherously, present in the everyday human realm of how our lives are both imagined and lived: in the 'crossroads' scenario of decision-making, the place of regret in retrospective assessments of paths taken and not taken, and, at the outer limit, as the wish not to have been born. Christopher Prendergast take us on a dizzying exploratory journey through some of these intellectual and human landscapes, mobilizing a wide range of reference from antiquity to the present, and sustained by the belief that, whether as help or hindrance, and with many variations across cultures, counterfactual thinking and imagining are fundamental to what it is to be human. (shrink)

This paper compares the four national electronic Identity Management Systems (eIDMS), which have been described in the previous chapters. The section Similarities and differences between four national eIDMS will highlight the differences between these systems conceived as socio-technical systems with regard to the eID itself, the eID cards as tokens, the authentication processes as well as the procedures for distribution and personalisation, the support provided for installing the technology and any provider-related regulation. The section A three-fold path dependency , according (...) to the conceptual framework presented in the introductory chapter to this special issue, compares the new electronic systems with the previous ones in each country, in order to assess the continuation or changes with regard to the organisational, technological and regulatory path of development. The following sections explain the differences between the paths chosen and the path-related changes by analysing the actor constellation of the institutional actors, in particular the policy field and the power structure, as well as the context in which the policy makers made their choices, looking at privacy and Staatsverständnis in particular. Finally the diffusion and usage of the eID function will be compared and analysed, discussing to what extent the new institution has made a contribution to solving the policy problem it was developed for, e.g. providing a stronger authentication in order to meet security concerns regarding e-government and e-commerce transactions and avoiding new privacy infringements. Using grounded theory, the explanations provided have the status of generalisations derived from the four cases. They have to be considered as hypotheses, which will be checked for other countries in the following papers of this special issue. The comparison of the four cases in this article shows a high degree of path dependency. Most of the differences between the new systems are just a continuation of differences between the previous systems although they are to solve the same problem and can draw on the same technologies. But most astonishing is the finding that these differences between the systems do not influence diffusion and use of the eID function in the respective countries. (shrink)

Despite its proliferation in technology studies, the concept of “path dependence” has scarcely been applied to epistemology. In this essay, I investigate path dependence in the production of scientific knowledge, first, by considering Kuhn's scattered remarks that lend support to a path-dependence thesis (Section I) and second by developing and criticising Kuhn's embryonic account (Sections II and III). I examine a case from high-energy physics that brings the path-dependent nature of scientific knowledge to the fore and I pay attention to (...) two sources of path dependence—“theoretical” and “instrumental”. The latter source is particularly important in “big science”. I ask in Section IV whether path dependence in scientific knowledge can lead to circumstances like those in the technological field, in which a theory can come to dominate a scientific speciality even though it is inferior to alternatives. In Section V, I ask what implications my thesis has for science policy. (shrink)

This book examines the philosophy of the nineteenth-century Indian mystic Sri Ramakrishna and brings him into dialogue with Western philosophers of religion, primarily in the recent analytic tradition. Sri Ramakrishna’s expansive conception of God as the impersonal-personal Infinite Reality, Maharaj argues, opens up an entirely new paradigm for addressing central topics in the philosophy of religion, including divine infinitude, religious diversity, the nature and epistemology of mystical experience, and the problem of evil.

The current “exemplarist turn” within virtue ethics is increasingly shedding light on the importance of exemplars both as enabling one to identify the virtues and for the importance they bear for orienting one’s conduct, as well as for educating the novice. However, even if categorizations of exemplars have already been proposed, there seems to be a lack of discussion on the kind of imitation different exemplars are supposed to elicit. In order to offer a preliminary answer to this question, in (...) this paper I present three paths to flourishing via imitation of exemplary individuals: The Platonic, the Stoic, and the Aristotelian. Then, I sketch an attempt to reconcile these models. In conclusion, I suggest that, when it comes to education, this reconciliation becomes necessary. Along these lines, I recommend that a multi-step educational program is elaborated. (shrink)

This paper argues that the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics suggests a form of holism for which the whole (total ensemble of paths) has properties that are not strongly reducible to the properties of the parts (the single trajectories). Feynman’s sum over histories calculates the probability amplitude of a particle moving within a boundary by summing over all the possible trajectories that the particle can undertake. These trajectories and their individual probability amplitudes are thus necessary in calculating the total (...) amplitude. However, not all possible trajectories are differentiable, thus suggesting that they are not physical possibilities, but only mathematical entities. It follows that if the possible differentiable trajectories are taken to be part of the physical system, they are not sufficient to calculate the total probability amplitude. The conclusion is that the total ensemble is weakly non-supervenient upon the physically possible trajectories. (shrink)

Critics have maintained that John Rawls’s theory of justice is unrealistic and undemocratic. Andrius Gališanka’s incisive intellectual biography argues that in misunderstanding the origins and development of Rawls’s argument, previous narratives fail to explain the novelty of his philosophical approach and so misunderstand his political vision.

In this qualitative meta-analysis, I analyze corporate irresponsibility as an emergent organizational process. Organizations enacting irresponsible practices rely not only on a particular form of a process path, but on how this process path evolves within the organization. To achieve a better understanding of this process path, I conducted a qualitative meta-analysis drawn from 20 published cases of irresponsible organizations. I explore how and under which conditions irresponsible behavior of organizations arises, develops, and changes over time. The process path of (...) corporate irresponsibility relies on the interaction of multiple levels of analysis and its temporal occurrence, resulting in either path dependency or path creation. Based on the empirical findings of the evolving phenomena, this study focuses on three phases of corporate irresponsibility: institutionalization, problematization, and adaptation. The process of corporate irresponsibility can take two distinct paths, the reactive, and the proactive. This study contributes to the corporate irresponsibility literature by offering new insights into, first, a processual and more interactional approach to corporate irresponsibility that accounts for interdependencies on the different levels of each phase, and second, the self-reinforcing mechanisms and explanatory patterns of corporate irresponsibility leading to path dependency or path creation. (shrink)

In this article, we suggest that one of the unexplored paths toward collaboration between firms and civil society organizations starts with confrontation or potential conflict, and that the transition toward collaboration can be further understood if one focuses on triadic relationships rather than dyadic ones. We analyze the presence of third parties and their different roles to explain how collaboration is facilitated. The article aims at bringing together the bodies of research on business–civil society confrontation and on business–civil society collaboration. (...) It offers a comparative analysis of four case studies, and proposes a typology of third parties composed of facilitating allies, participating allies, mediators, and solution seekers. We conclude with some implications for further research as well as for practice. (shrink)

First published in German in 1995, volume 77 of Heidegger’s Complete Works consists of three imaginary conversations written as World War II was coming to an end. Composed at a crucial moment in history and in Heidegger's own thinking, these conversations present meditations on science and technology; the devastation of nature, the war, and evil; and the possibility of release from representational thinking into a more authentic relation with being and the world. The first conversation involves a scientist, a scholar, (...) and a guide walking together on a country path; the second takes place between a teacher and a tower-warden, and the third features a younger man and an older man in a prisoner-of-war camp in Russia, where Heidegger’s two sons were missing in action. Unique because of their conversational style, the lucid and precise translation of these texts offers insight into the issues that engaged Heidegger’s wartime and postwar thinking. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Nature: Two Conceptions of Truth Background on Logic and Paradox Nature and Logic And Now Revenge References.

BackgroundBreakthroughs in animal studies make the topic of human application of ectogenesis for medical and non-medical purposes more relevant than ever before. While current data do not yet demonstrate a reasonable expectation of clinical benefit soon, several groups are investigating the feasibility of artificial uteri for extracorporeal human gestation.Main textThis paper offers the first comprehensive and up to date discussion of the most important pros and cons of human ectogenesis in light of clinical application, along with an examination of crucial (...) ethical (and legal) issues that continued research into, and the clinical translation of, ectogenesis gives rise to. The expected benefits include advancing prenatal medicine, improving neonatal intensive care, and providing a novel pathway towards biological parenthood. This comes with important future challenges. Prior to human application, important questions have to be considered concerning translational research, experimental use of human fetuses and appropriate safety testing. Key questions are identified regarding risks to ectogenesis’ subjects, and the physical impact on the pregnant person when transfer from the uterus to the artificial womb is required. Critical issues concerning proportionality have to be considered, also in terms of equity of access, relative to the envisaged application of ectogenesis. The advent of ectogenesis also comes with crucial issues surrounding abortion, extended fetal viability and moral status of the fetus.ConclusionsThe development of human ectogenesis will have numerous implications for clinical practice. Prior to human testing, close consideration should be given to whether (and how) ectogenesis can be introduced as a continuation of existing neonatal care, with due attention to both safety risks to the fetus and pressures on pregnant persons to undergo experimental and/or invasive procedures. Equally important is the societal debate about the acceptable applications of ectogenesis and how access to these usages should be prioritized. It should be anticipated that clinical availability of ectogenesis, possibly first as a way to save extremely premature fetuses, may spark demand for non-medical purposes, like avoiding physical and social burdens of pregnancy. (shrink)

(2013). Multiple paths to transfer and constraint relaxation in insight problem solving. Thinking & Reasoning: Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 96-136. doi: 10.1080/13546783.2012.742852.

Leto II discusses not just the meaning of life for individuals as for ancient Earth philosophers from the Buddha and Socrates to Albert Camus and Susan Wolf, but the meaning of life for humanity itself. In God Emperor of Dune, Leto II talks with the Duncans, Moneo, and Hwi Noree not just about the meaning of life for individuals, but for humanity as a whole, across vast reaches of time. So for the Buddha, the meaning of life is to end (...) suffering. But for Socrates the meaning of life is to examine life. Frank Herbert was trying – in his own imperfect way – to imagine a multicultural future for humanity, one not dominated by Western cultures To wander back onto the Golden Path, Herbert's imperfect efforts, as well as Leto's example in God Emperor of Dune, show that learning from all of humanity is a key to the meaning of life. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the path of appearance and awareness.