The Viewpoint article expressed the feelings of unease often encountered at the display of human corpses in museums, whether relating to prehistoric or recent times. The reasons frequently stem from what is seen as a lack of respect for the remains of another human being. In this instance, the underlying concerns are that the corpses are displayed naked, along with lack of consent from anyone with an interest in them. While these are legitimate queries, ethical interests extend further afield to (...) include whether the corpses are identifiable, are prehistoric or recent, and the existence of living descendants. Additional interests include the uses to which corpses are put, namely, research, teaching and/or public displays.In recent years, it has become commonplace to hear of human remains that had been held for many years by universities or museums being repatriated to indigenous people groups in America, Australia and New Zealand for subsequent reburial.1 ,2 However, the debate regarding the ethical uses to which dead bodies may be put has taken a surprising turn in recent years with the extremely popular, highly publicised, public displays of dissected and plastinated whole body cadavers.3Over the years, most people have had few misgivings looking at the remains of prehistoric individuals, or Egyptian mummies.i Attitudes towards viewing mummies have been shaped by the perception that prehistoric remains are located outside our immediate social relationships, and so, have often been considered as anatomical objects rather than the remains of people-now-dead. In other words, their anonymity appears to protect both the corpses …. (shrink)

Accounts from the humanities which focus on describing the nature of whole body plastinates are examined. We argue that this literature shows that plastinates do not clearly occupy standard cultural binary categories of interior or exterior, real or fake, dead or alive, bodies or persons, self or other and argue that Noël Carroll’s structural framework for horrific monsters unites the various accounts of the contradictory or ambiguous nature of plastinates while also showing how plastinates differ from horrific fictional monsters. In (...) doing so, it offers an account of the varied reactions of those responding to exhibitions of plastinated whole bodies. (shrink)

The bibliography of works discussing Russian Marxism is huge, making it very difficult to give an original interpretation of this phenomenon. To distinguish myself from the interpretative mainstream, I do not focus on persons and chronology, but rather investigate the question whether there was a specific logic in the unfolding of Russian Marxism which led to its consolidation into a specific doctrine, focusing on dialectical and historical materialism, during the Soviet period, and transformed it from a pluralistic philosophy into the (...) monolithic official ideology of the Russian Communist Party. I concentrate on some theoretical and epistemological problems discussed by Russian Marxists, such as whether dialectical materialism is a theory or a methodology, whether dialectics is a logical or ontological category, what the term “dialectical materialism” exactly means, and what the materialistic understanding of cognition and the core assumption of historical materialism are. Accordingly, my approach has a reconstructive character: I focus on some fundamental propositions of Soviet Marxism which are recorded in textbooks on philosophy and try to recover their philosophical genesis. Thus my scope is restricted to a selection of relevant discussion points, allowing me to keep the philosophical discussions separate from political controversies. (shrink)

De Interpretatione is among Aristotle's most influential and widely read writings; C. W. A. Whitaker presents the first systematic study of this work, and offers a radical new view of its aims, its structure, and its place in Aristotle's system. He shows that De Interpretatione is not a disjointed essay on ill-connected subjects, as traditionally thought, but a highly organized and systematic treatise on logic, argument, and dialectic.

C. W. A. Whitaker, Aristotle’s De Interpretatione. Contradiction and Dialectic. Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1996. x + 235 pp., £30. ISBN 0 19 823619 0 Ulrich Nortmann, Modale Syllogismen, mögliche Welten, Essentialismus. Eine Analyse der aristotelischen Modallogik (Perspektiven der Analytischen Philo-sophie/perspectives in Analytical Philosophy, 9). Berlin and New York:Walter de Gruyter, 1996. x + 427 pp. DM 260.00 (for members of the Society for Analytical Philosophy DM 98.00). ISBN 3-11-014660-6.

What is the strength of anthropological fieldwork when we want to understand human technologies? In this article we argue that anthropological fieldwork can be understood as a process of gaining insight into different contextualisations in practiced places that will open up new understandings of technologies in use, e.g., technologies as multistable ontologies. The argument builds on an empirical study of robots at a Danish rehabilitation centre. Ethnographic methods combined with anthropological learning processes open up new way for exploring how robots (...) enter into professional practices and change values, social relations and materialities. Though substantial funding has been invested in developing health service robots, few studies have been undertaken that explore human-robot interactions as they play out in everyday practice. We argue that the complex learning processes involve not only so-called end-users but also staff, management, doings and discourse in a complex amalgamation of materials and values. (shrink)

This paper offers a new argument in favour of experiential pluralism about visual experience – the view that the nature of successful visual experience is different from the nature of unsuccessful visual experience. The argument appeals to the role of experience in explaining possession of ordinary abilities. In addition, the paper makes a methodological point about philosophical debates concerning the nature of perceptual experience: whether a given view about the nature of experience amounts to an interesting and substantive thesis about (...) our own minds depends on the significance of the psychological or mental kind claim made by it. This means that an adequate defence of a given view of the nature of experience must include articulation of the latter's significance qua psychological or mental kind. The argument advanced provides the material to meet this demand. In turn, this constitutes further support for the argument itself. (shrink)

In the psychological literature, love is often seen as a construct inseparable from that of close, interpersonal relationships. As a result, it has been often assumed that the same motivational factors underlie both phenomena. This often leads researchers to propose that love does not exist in itself—that it is an emotion which stems solely from a need for attachment, fulfillment of reproductive aims, or for social exchange. The popular cultural imagination, however, perceives love as a unique, mysterious, altruistic, ever-lasting bond (...) between two people—a vision of love which is at odds with its supposed psychological origins. We propose that an ideal of love and its enactment in our culture is a result of two intertwining factors. Within the last few centuries, interpersonal relationships and love have replaced religion as islands of existential comfort. Toward this end, lovers project illusory meaning on their partners. The laborious and turbulent process of withdrawing these projections can lead to what many thinkers think “love” is: bestowal of value on another, and consequent respect for, and care for that person, unmotivated by one's own needs, within the context of a real relationship. (shrink)

The title of Stewart’s biography is a tribute to Alain Locke’s seminal work, The New Negro: An Interpretation. This 1925 anthology highlighted the works of several up-and-coming black writers of the 20th century, planting these authors and, thus, a new black intellectual movement squarely in the public eye. While Alain Locke and John Dewey did not work directly together, Dewey’s philosophical approaches, specifically aesthetic valuation, significantly influenced Locke’s life. John C. Stewart provides a dense and thorough illustration of Locke’s use (...) of aesthetic valuation in his personal, professional, and educational experiences. Locke was pursuing his doctoral degree at Harvard University in Dewey’s discipline at... (shrink)

Maya Zehfuss critiques constructivist theories of international relations (currently considered to be at the cutting edge of the discipline) and finds them wanting and even politically dangerous. Zehfuss uses Germany's first shift toward using its military abroad after the end of the Cold War to illustrate why constructivism does not work and how it leads to particular analytical outcomes and forecloses others. She argues that scholars are limiting their abilities to act responsibly in international relations by looking towards constructivism as (...) the future. (shrink)

This is an English translation of one of the more challenging and enigmatic of Plato's dialogues between Socrates and Parmenides and Zeno of Elea, that begins with Zeno defending his treatise of Parmenidean monism against those partisans of plurality. Focus Philosophical Library translations are close to and are non-interpretative of the original text, with the notes and a glossary intending to provide the reader with some sense of the terms and the concepts as they were understood by Plato's immediate audience.

Viewed from a certain perspective, nothing can seem more secure than introspection. Consider an ordinary conscious episode—say, your current visual experience of the colour of this page. You can judge, when reflecting on this experience, that you have a visual experience as of something white with black marks before you. Does it seem reasonable to doubt this introspective judgement? Surely not—such doubt would seem utterly fanciful. The trustworthiness of introspection is not only assumed by commonsense, it is also taken for (...) granted by many of theorists about the mind. Within both philosophy and the science of consciousness it is widely held that introspection is generally reliable, at least with respect to the question of one’s current (or immediately prior) conscious states. Without this assumption, we could not make sense of theorists’ widespread use of introspection, both in support of their own position and to undermine that of their opponents. (shrink)

This book examines the tension inherent in the waging of ethical war, and argues that war and its relationship to ethics need to be rethought fundamentally.

In 2007 a social scientist and a designer created a spatial installation to communicate social science research about the regulation of emerging science and technology. The rationale behind the experiment was to improve scientific knowledge production by making the researcher sensitive to new forms of reactions and objections. Based on an account of the conceptual background to the installation and the way it was designed, the paper discusses the nature of the engagement enacted through the experiment. It is argued that (...) experimentation is a crucial way of making social science about science communication and engagement more robust. (shrink)

The article combines a criticism of public understanding of science with the sociology of expectations to examine how particular expectations toward scientific progress have performative effects for the construction of publics as citizens of science. By analyzing a particular controversy about gene therapy in Denmark, the article demonstrates how different sets of expectations can be used to discriminate among three different assemblages: the assemblage of consumption, the assemblage of comportment, and the assemblage of heroic action. Each of these assemblages makes (...) medical science, scientific citizenship, politics, patients, doctors, and expectations toward the future emerge in particular ways. By their radically different expectations toward science and their different constructions of what it means to be a scientific citizen, the assemblages construct the objectives of the governance of science in three very different ways. (shrink)

Individuals unvaccinated against COVID-19 (C19) experienced prejudice and blame for the pandemic. Because people vastly overestimate C19 risks, we examined whether these negative judgements could be partially understood as a form of scapegoating (ie, blaming a group unfairly for an undesirable outcome) and whether political ideology (previously shown to shape risk perceptions in the USA) moderates scapegoating of the unvaccinated. We grounded our analyses in scapegoating literature and risk perception during C19. We obtained support for our speculations through two vignette-based (...) studies conducted in the USA in early 2022. We varied the risk profiles (age, prior infection, comorbidities) and vaccination statuses of vignette characters (eg, vaccinated, vaccinated without recent boosters, unvaccinated, unvaccinated-recovered), while keeping all other information constant. We observed that people hold the unvaccinated (vs vaccinated) more responsible for negative pandemic outcomes and that political ideology moderated these effects: liberals (vs conservatives) were more likely to scapegoat the unvaccinated (vs vaccinated), even when presented with information challenging the culpability of the unvaccinated known at the time of data collection (eg, natural immunity, availability of vaccines, time since last vaccination). These findings support a scapegoating explanation for a specific group-based prejudice that emerged during the C19 pandemic. We encourage medical ethicists to examine the negative consequences of significant C19 risk overestimation among the public. The public needs accurate information about health issues. That may involve combating misinformation that overestimates and underestimates disease risk with similar vigilance to error. (shrink)

Responsible sustainable consumer behavior involves a complex pattern of environmental and social issues, in line with the view of sustainability as a construct with both environmental and social pillar. So far, environmental dimension was far more researched than social dimension. In this article, we investigate the antecedents of both environmentally and socially RSCB and willingness to behave in environmentally/socially responsible way. We include measures of concern, perceived consumer control/effectiveness, personal/social norms and ethical ideologies/obligation to better explain and extend the traditional (...) theory of planned behavior. Additionally, we test the impact of information availability about environmental or social impact on RSCB. Our findings on a representative sample of 426 respondents show that in general, antecedents of environmentally and socially responsible sustainable consumption are similar in their effect on consumer behavior, with personal norms, concern and ethical ideologies having the strongest impact on RSCB. When comparing both types of behavior, socially responsible behavior is more influenced by perceived behavioral control and possibly social norms than environmentally responsible behavior, while information availability plays its role for both behaviors. Sustainable responsible consumption can be achieved by embracing both dimensions of sustainability and consumers need to have a sense for both social and environmental issues. The complexity and struggles between doing what is good for environment and society could be the reason why consumers have difficulties achieving sustainable responsible consumption. (shrink)

McCullough et al 1 confront a challenge that no organisation has fully eradicated: incivility. They emphasise that civility is not merely a matter of common decency and good conduct but also a moral imperative, an aspirational value that should be promoted and modelled by all the members of the institutions and throughout all the stages of practitioners’ careers. In their fusion of ancient wisdom and philosophical classics with their own insights on contemporary workplaces, they forward a defensible case for why (...) civility matters and is worthy of continuous contemplation. Given the clarity and persuasion of their piece, I do not seek to challenge their claims. Instead, I will complement their argument with a perspective highlighting the difficulties of identifying low-level workplace mistreatments and responding to them impartially. While organisations should certainly not skimp on their efforts to promote civility and hold their transgressors accountable, there are nonetheless boundaries to good intentions.2 The unexamined pursuit of civility, if characterised by inconsistent definitions of harm and inappropriate allegations of uncivil acts, runs the risk of fostering its own toxicity spirals. With the hope of contributing to the exchange initiated by McCullough and colleagues, I briefly highlight …. (shrink)

The aim of my paper is to review the discussion concerning various difficulties which surround the definition of depression and the methods of diagnosing and treating the disease against the background of the now dominant reductionist paradigm in psychiatry, as well as to answer the question whether a new approach to psychiatric disorders proposed by philosophers of psychiatry working within the phenomenologically inspired embodied and enactive paradigm indeed offers a solution to these difficulties. I present the issues specific to the (...) subject of depression in light of the more general problems related to biological psychiatry that have recently caused much debate. In the second part of the paper, I consider enactive, phenomenological and embodied theories of depression and the possibilities of new methods of treatment. My goal is to assess whether these theories indeed add anything important to the conceptions that are already present in psychiatry. I conclude that even if the embodied philosophy of psychiatry does not solve many of the problems faced by modern psychiatry, it can, nevertheless, provide a useful theoretical basis for future changes. (shrink)

Researchers of non-human animal emotions tend to defend some forms of anthropomorphism and seek ways to make it more critical, self-aware, and useful for scientific purposes. I propose that to achieve this goal, we need first to conduct a Kantian investigation into the deeper structure of anthropomorphism. I argue that we can distinguish at least three levels of anthropomorphising: a narrative level, a cognitive level and an in-between, metatheoretical level which is the deeper structure determining how we anthropomorphise. Because the (...) current debate tends to focus either on the narrative level or on the cognitive level, this paper concentrates on the metatheoretical level, discusses its role in emotion research, the possible errors it may cause, and how we can work on it, drawing on predictive processing-based theories of emotions and an evolutionary approach. The key to being critical in anthropomorphism is to be aware of the complexity of this whole structure, as well as to be able to challenge and put into question all and any of its elements. (shrink)

Given Descartes’ metaphysical and natural-philosophic commitments, it is very difficult to theorize the pregnant human being as a human being under his system. Specifically, given (1) Descartes’ account of generation, (2) his commitment to mechanistic explanations where bodies are concerned, (3) his reliance on a subtle individuating principle for human (and animal) bodies, and (4) his metaphysics of human beings, which include minds, bodies, and mind-body unions, there is no available human substance or entity which may clearly be the subject (...) of pregnancy. The incompatibility of any of the three options found in (4) with (1), (2), or (3), together with other undesirable consequences should any be selected, results in what I call the pregnancy problem. The pregnancy problem (henceforth, PP) is a previously unconsidered problem for the Cartesian philosophy. Given PP, commitment(s) (1), (2), (3) or (4), or a combination of these, would have to be revised for Descartes’ system to avoid a variety of tensions; alternately, counterintuitive consequences may have to be accepted. Ironically, given Descartes’ interest in generation and medicine more generally, the Cartesian framework struggles to accommodate pregnancy in human beings. This may have implications for the systematicity and sex-neutrality of dualist metaphysics in general. (shrink)

The article presents the processes of public discourse construction and dynamics. On the national level, symbolic processes are related to the position of the country in the international environment. Being a collective political actor on the discursive scene, the country is involved in legitimation mechanisms in the interaction stream with other political actors, i.e. its foreign counterparts. Upon intentions to enter the mainstream European culture after the transition period, Spain became discursively involved in the mutual legitimation procedures involving a number (...) of political partners and based on the requirement of institutional isomorphism. Consistently presented within the propitious approach of new institutionalism on the corporate level (e.g. Meyer and Rowan 2006), it is advanced herein on the national level of Spanish discursive policies. (shrink)

The article presents the processes of public discourse construction and dynamics. On the national level, symbolic processes are related to the position of the country in the international environment. Being a collective political actor on the discursive scene, the country is involved in legitimation mechanisms in the interaction stream with other political actors, i.e. its foreign counterparts. Upon intentions to enter the mainstream European culture after the transition period, Spain became discursively involved in the mutual legitimation procedures involving a number (...) of political partners and based on the requirement of institutional isomorphism. Consistently presented within the propitious approach of new institutionalism on the corporate level (e.g. Meyer and Rowan 2006), it is advanced herein on the national level of Spanish discursive policies. (shrink)

L?acte constitutif de l?histoire culturelle contemporaine?tait la coupure avec les presuppositions?pist?mologiques et m?thodologiques de l?histoire?conomique et sociale. Le champ nouveau de l?historiographie, rompant avec?la tradition historiographique?, s?est fond? sur le nouveau?mat?rialisme? et sur la th?orie de la r?pr?sentation. Une question inqui?tante cepandant s?impose: dans quelle mesure les conceptualisations et les m?thodologies de l?histoire contemporaine ne sont que costumes nouveaux pour vieux engagements de l?histoire? Le mat?rialisme nouveau ne d?guise-t-il pas la vieille pratique des historiens de rassembler des?faits?? La th?orie de (...) la r?pr?sentation ne d?guise-t-elle pas l?id?e des m?ntalit?s? Si la r?ponse est affirmatif, il faut poser une nouvelle question: Les grandes luttes dans le champ de l?histoire ne sont-elles pas des strat?gies d?oubli qui essaient d?effacer la m?moire de l?historiographie recente et de ses effets cognitifs? Konstitutivni cin za savremenu kulturnu istoriju bio je raskid sa epistemoloskim i metodoloskim pretpostavkama ekonomske i socijalne istorije. Novo polje istoriografije, raskidajuci sa?tradicionalnom istoriografijom?, pronaslo je oslonac u?novom materijalizmu? i teoriji reprezentacije. Namece se, medjutim, jedno pitanje koje stvara zabrinutost: u kojoj meri su konceptulizacije i metodologije savremene istorije samo novo ruho starih zaloga istorije? Ne krije li novi materijalizam stare prakse istoricara da prikupljaju?c?injenice?? Ne krije li teorija reprezentacije ideju mentaliteta? Ukoliko je odgovor potvrdan, treba postaviti novo pitanje: nisu li velike borbe koje se odvijaju u polju istorije strategije zaborava kojima se pokusava izbrisati secanje na skorasnju istoriografiju i posledice koje je ona imala po spoznaju? (shrink)