The human being’s mastery of itself, on which the self is founded, practically always involves the annihilation of the subject in whose service that mastery is maintained, because the substance which is mastered, suppressed, and disintegrated by self-preservation is nothing other than the living entity.

Gerontologists have proposed different concepts for ageing well such as ‘successful ageing’, ‘active ageing’, and ‘healthy ageing’. These conceptions are primarily focused on maintaining health and preventing disease. But they also raise the questions: what is a good life in old age and how can it be achieved? While medical in origin, these concepts and strategies for ageing well also contain ethical advice for individuals and societies on how to act regarding ageing and old age. This connection between gerontology and (...) ethics is overlooked by both schools of thought. We thus develop this research programme for a systematic geroethics in four steps. First, we analyze ‘successful ageing’ as put forward by Rowe and Kahn as a paradigmatic example of a gerontological conception of ageing well. Then, in a second step, we move from criticisms within gerontology to an ethical perspective; in particular, we want to clarify the problem of the claim of universal validity of conceptions of the good life. In a third constructive step, we explain how the ‘capabilities approach’ could be applied in this context as a normative foundation for the implicit normative assumptions of gerontological conceptions of ageing well, such as a particular choice of functionings, the ethical relevance of human agency, and the resulting claims of individuals towards society. Finally, using a concept developed by the German philosopher Ursula Wolf, we systematically develop the different aspects of the connection between ageing well and the theory of the good life in their full complexity and show their interconnectedness. (shrink)

Some of the recent criticisms published during and after the last revision process of the Declaration of Helsinki are directed at its basic legitimacy. In this article we want to have a closer look at the two criticisms we consider to be the most fundamental. The first criticism questions the legitimate authorship of the World Medical Association to publish a document such as the Declaration. The second fundamental criticism we want to examine argues that the last revision process failed to (...) meet the standards for fair, democratic procedures. Although both criticisms deny the formal legitimacy of the Declaration in the most fundamental way, they have never been addressed in detail in a single article. We refute most of the related arguments. However, acknowledging some of the points made, improvements for future revision processes and versions of the Declaration of Helsinki are outlined. (shrink)

Much has been written on Claude Bernard as a relentless promoter of the experimental method in physiology. Although the paper will touch Bernard’s experimental intuitions and his experimental practice as well, its focus is slightly different. It will address the laboratory, that is, the space in which experimentation in the life sciences takes place, and it will analyze the scattered remarks that Bernard made on the topic both in his books and in his posthumously published writings. The paper is divided (...) into four parts. The introduction briefly sketches the coming into being of the physiological laboratory in the first half of the nineteenth century. The second section will give an overview of Claude Bernard’s own itinerary in physiology and his personal laboratory experience. The third part of the paper will have a look at the image of the laboratory that Claude depicted in his Introduction to Experimental Medicine. In the subsequent section and by contrast, the image of the laboratory will come into focus as it can be reconstructed from Bernard’s notebook that he kept between 1850 and 1860, the Cahier rouge. Finally, the fifth part of the paper will spotlight Claude Bernard’s comparison of the sciences and the arts and their respective practices. A brief concluding statement tries to summarize Bernard’s epistemological position toward experimentally practiced science. (shrink)

The vast majority of empirical research on stakeholder management has traditionally focused on multinational corporations. Only in recent years, scholars have begun to pay attention to the stakeholder management concept in relation to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The few existing studies in this area, however, discuss SMEs as a context free category or remain focused on single country analysis. This cross-national empirical research investigates SME owner-managers' perceptions of stakeholder management in six European countries. The comparative analysis is followed by (...) a discussion of how institutional, cultural and linguistic contexts can influence owner-managers' sensemaking of stakeholder management. Our study questions the universality of specific management terms and proposes that more attention should be paid to the institutional, cultural and linguistic environments that shape economic activity in different parts of Europe. (shrink)

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The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere is a key contribution to political philosophy, media history, democratic theory and political economy – published almost 60 years ago – that left a deep imprint on the process of democratic consolidation of the Federal Republic of Germany. At the same time, the Habermasian model of the public sphere was used to test out the possibilities of democratisation beyond the nation-state. The theory of the public sphere was, however, mainly discussed as a contribution (...) to normative political theory and, as such, the applicability of its normative standards remained contested. In this article, I focus instead on a second sociological reading of Habermas’ theory of the public sphere as an exploration of the cognitive foundations of modern society. The relevance of this approach can be shown in an exemplary way by discussing the functioning of publicity, which, by creating social visibility and facilitating public opinion formation, on the one hand, provides the knowledge base of a shared social world and, on the other hand, becomes the main driver of social change through critical self-reflection. The article goes on to take a look at recent public sphere transformations in the context of digitalisation and globalisation, and argues that public sphere principles are both undermined and gain new relevance when facing the challenges of new and digital media. (shrink)

The spreading phenomenon of Euroscepticism is manifested in critical practices in discourse that oppose European integration. This paper explores Euroscepticism as an element of discourse, which cannot only be measured as party positions or individual attitudes. Based on this understanding, our argument is twofold. Firstly, Euroscepticism relates to the unsettled and principally contested character of the European Union (EU) as a political entity: its basic purpose and rationale, its institutional design and its future trajectory. It correlates with pro-European discourse and (...) the attempts to promote the (democratic) legitimacy of the EU. Secondly, we argue that Euroscepticism unfolds primarily through mass media. As such, it is given public expression through general news values, drama and narratives that are targeted to draw the attention of the wider audience. Understanding this responsive and public nature of Euroscepticism leads us, in the end, to a comprehensive typology of six forms of polity evaluation of the EU. (shrink)

In this paper we propose that the concept of mediatization should be used not only in the narrow sense to analyze the impact of media on the operational modes of the political system, but also in more general terms to capture the transformation of the public sphere and the changing conditions for the generation of political legitimacy. More specifically and with regard to the role of political communication on the internet, we focus on the transformative potential of online media in (...) terms of a) publicity: the capacity of the online media to focus public attention on the political process of the EU; b) participation: the capacity of the online media to include plural voices and activate the audience; and c) public opinion formation: the capacity of the online media to enable informed opinions. We test our mediatization model on the online debates that took place during the 2009 EU elections in 12 member-states and at the trans-European level. The findings confirm the mediatizing impact of online political communication on the generation of the political legitimacy of the EU. Online media constitute a virtually shared forum for political communication that political actors and users increasingly occupy developing homogenous patterns of evaluating European integration. Furthermore, the stronghold of offline media in the EU e-sphere and the tendency to discuss the EP elections within the frame of domestic politics reaffirm the key role of national political and media cultures. (shrink)

The riddle of how to democratize the multi-level polity of the EU is answered by pointing to the empirical impact of an unfolding European public sphere. It is argued that there is a self-constituting dynamic of a European public sphere which abets the coupling of transnational spaces of communication with the institutional integration of the EU. From this perspective, democracy is not external to the EU, it is already part of the logic of European institution-building and governance and is fostered (...) by collective learning processes in which definitions of the collective good as well as conditions for appropriate forms of political participation are negotiated. In discussing the case of the EU’s constitutional reform, a theory of democratic functionalism is proposed which accounts for this specific form of democratization of the EU. (shrink)

This volume outlines a model of language that can be characterized as functionalist, usage-based, dynamic, and complex-adaptive. The core idea is that linguistic structure is not stable and uniform, but continually refreshed by the interaction between three components: usage, the communicative activities of speakers; conventionalization, the social processes triggered by these activities and feeding back into them; and entrenchment, the individual cognitive processes that are also linked to these activities in a feedback loop. Hans-Joerg Schmid explains how this multiple (...) feedback system works by extending his Entrenchment-and-Conventionalization Model, showing how the linguistic system is created, sustained, and continually adapted by the ongoing interaction between usage, conventionalization, and entrenchment. Fulfilling the promise of usage-based accounts, the model explains how exactly usage is transformed into collective and individual grammar and how these two grammars in turn feed back into usage.0The book is exceptionally broad in scope, with insights from a wide range of linguistic subdisciplines. It provides a coherent account of the role of multiple factors that influence language structure, variation, and change, including frequency, economy, identity, multilingualism, and language contact. (shrink)

Book notice Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-2 DOI 10.1007/s11016-011-9588-3 Authors Nicolas Rasmussen, School of History and Philosophy, University of NSW, Sydney, 2052 Australia Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.

Written in the 1960s, TRUTH AND METHOD is Gadamer's magnum opus.

Using the lens of positive organizational ethics, we theorized that empathy affects decisions in ethical dilemmas that concern the well-being of not only the organization but also other stakeholders. We hypothesized and found that empathetic managers were less likely to comply with requests by an authority figure to cut the wages of their employees than were non-empathetic managers. However, when an authority figure requested to hold wages constant, empathy did not affect wage cut decisions. These findings imply that empathy can (...) serve as a safeguard for ethical decision making in organizations during trying times without generally undermining organizational effectiveness. We conclude by discussing the implications of our research. (shrink)

An important part of friendships are the so-called special obligations generated by them. Friends owe things to each other that they do not owe to strangers. While such special obligations are an important part of our everyday practice, they raise several philosophical questions. These questions include the status of special obligations (are such obligations sui generis or is it possible to reduce them to general moral principles?), the source of such special obligations (what grounds special obligations of friendship?), and the (...) content of special obligations (what is the content of special obligations of friendship?). This chapter gives an overview of some of the most important positions in the literature with regard to these questions. (shrink)

The Colombian-born photographer and artist Guadalupe Ruiz has undertaken a project to document the social and economic inequity in her native city of Bogotá. She explores six houses from the city's six different taxation classes whose residents range from extremely affluent to impoverished. By taking photographs of apartments and streetscapes, whole interiors and single pieces of furniture, Ruiz creates a cohesive and multilayered portrait of the city as a whole. She also examines personal and decorative objects, such as family portraits (...) and Catholic icons found in both slums and luxurious villas, and highlights the differences and some surprising cultural parallels between socioeconomic classes. Guadalupe Ruiz— Bogotá D. C. is a subtle, thought-provoking examination of urban life and includes over a hundred stunning images arranged by neighborhood. A map of the neighborhoods and a complementary essay are included to provide context for Ruiz's impressive photographs. Text in English, French, Spanish, and German. (shrink)

Émile Durkheim remains one of the most controversial, and deeply misunderstood, classics of social theory. His work differs from the dominant version of sociology that has essentially accepted the modernist self-description of contemporary societies; and it contradicts the individualism that has come to dominate the social sciences. For everybody who is interested in constructing theoretical alternatives to this individualism, Durkheim's sociology can be a useful inspiration - not only because of the solutions it suggests, but already because of the questions (...) it asks. Making use of the theoretical possibilities offered by the Durkheimian tradition, however, requires going beyond the familiar appropriations. The Oxford Handbook of Émile Durkheim takes stock of the different recent debates on Durkheimian sociology, and makes them accessible to a wide audience spanning various disciplines; this includes crucial debates that, due to language barriers, are not easily accessible for an English-reading public. The handbook's chapters elucidate the controversial key concepts of Durkheimian sociology; situate them within the contemporary political and theoretical debates they were originally responding to; offer surveys of empirical research that uses Durkheimian concepts (on topics that were already central for Durkheim's own work as well as on topics that Durkheim hardly touched upon), thus demonstrating the possibilities of a Durkheimian sociology; bring out the divergent, and competing, ways in which Durkheim's ideas have been appropriated and reformulated within more recent theoretical developments in the social sciences. In doing so, this volume is an important resource for all scholars and students looking to understand Durkheimian sociology. (shrink)

Immigrants now compose approximately 12 of the population of the United States and a sizable proportion of the workforce. Yet in contrast to research on other traditionally under-represented groups (e.g., women, African Americans), there are relatively few studies on issues related to being an immigrant in the U.S. workforce. This study examined English-only workplace policies, focusing on reactions to business justifications – explanations that justify managerial decisions as business necessities – for these policies. We contrasted the reactions of individuals coming (...) from immigrant families, where at least one parent was an immigrant to the U.S., with those of persons from non-immigrant families. Results of an experiment indicated that business justifications were successful in influencing the attitudes of non-immigrants toward the English-only policies, but did not influence the attitudes of individuals from immigrant families. Probing the reasons for this effect, a thought-listing protocol suggested that non-immigrants mentioned more of the business benefits of the English-only policy than did individuals from immigrant families. Further, business justifications for the English-only policy led individuals from immigrant families, but not those from non-immigrant families, to view the organization as being less ethical and less concerned with the welfare of its workers. The implications of messages from management being understood differently by different demographic groups are discussed. (shrink)

En este trabajo sobre los pensadores novohispanos Alonso de la Veracruz y Tomás de Mercado se seguirá la argumentación de un tema escasamente explorado: el papel fundacional de la ley natural y su interpretabilidad a través de la ley humana. Se mostrará que ambos autores, basados en las tradiciones salamantinas del siglo XVI, introducen un método que afirmaría la validez de la ley natural y, al mismo tiempo, permitir aplicaciones diversas de los parámetros normativos de la ley humana. Esto es (...) posible, como lo sostiene Veracruz en su crítica al diezmo para los pueblos indígenas, cuando la ley natural tenga que reinterpretarse a partir de hechos sociales concretos o cuando, como en el caso de Mercado, la ley humana sea congruente con la ley natural y, no obstante, tenga que desacatarse para evitar perjuicios personales o públicos en el plano comercial. (shrink)

To what extent do aesthetic taste and our interest in the arts constitute who we are? In this paper, we present a series of empirical findings that suggest an Aesthetic Self Effect supporting the claim that our aesthetic engagements are a central component of our identity. Counterfactual changes in aesthetic preferences, for example, moving from liking classical music to liking pop, are perceived as altering us as a person. The Aesthetic Self Effect is as strong as the impact of moral (...) changes, such as altering political partisanship or religious orientation, and significantly stronger than for other categories of taste, such as food preferences. Using a multidimensional scaling technique to map perceived aesthetic similarities among musical genres, we determined that aesthetic distances between genres correlate highly with the perceived difference in identity. Further studies generalize the Aesthetic Self Effect beyond the musical domain: general changes in visual art preferences, for example from more traditional to abstract art, also elicited a strong Self Effect. Exploring the breadth of this effect we also found an Anaesthetic Self Effect. That is, hypothetical changes from aesthetic indifference to caring about music, art, or beauty are judged to have a significant impact on identity. This effect on identity is stronger for aesthetic fields compared to leisure activities, such as hiking or playing video games. Across our studies, the Anaesthetic Self Effect turns out to be stronger than the Aesthetic Self Effect. Taken together, we found evidence for a link between aesthetics and identity: we are aesthetic selves. When our tastes in music and the arts or our aesthetic interests change we take these to be transformative changes. (shrink)

This article makes a contribution to debates in recognition theory by expanding the taxonomy of (mis-)recognition in the economic sphere. It argues that doing justice to the variety of ways in which recognition is engaged in economic relationships requires: (1) taking into consideration not just the recognition principle of esteem, but also (various aspects of) need and respect; (2) distinguishing a productive from a consumptive dimension with regards to each principle of recognition (need, esteem and respect); and (3) identifying the (...) specific economic relationship at stake (e.g. between consumers and producers, or between employers and employees). In this way, we can account for the diversity of demands for recognition made in the economic sphere, explain what underpins them, and bring structure into these diverse phenomena. What is more, this expanded taxonomy is a useful tool for social pathology theorists, who should appreciate the full range of variants of misrecognition when diagnosing pathologies of misrecognition in the economic sphere. (shrink)

Climate change poses a serious problem for established ethical theories. There is no dearth of literature on the subject of climate ethics that break down the complexity of the issue, thereby enabling one to arrive at partial conclusions such as: 'historical justice demands us to do this...' or 'intergenerational justice demands us to do that...'. In contrast, this article attempts to face up to this complexity, that is: to end with a synthesis of the arguments into what can be considered (...) to be the most reasonable and fairest approach to the politics of climate change on a global scale. A significant part of the paper is devoted to the questions whether or not a) historical emissions and b) population changes are relevant to how emissions rights should be distributed. I discuss the merits and drawbacks of each perspective and briefly outline the normative justifications. (shrink)

Indian Epistemology and Metaphysics introduces the reader to new perspectives on Indian philosophy based on philological research within the last twenty years. Concentrating on topics such as perception, inference, skepticism, consciousness, self, mind, and universals, some of the most notable scholars working in classical Indian philosophy today examine core epistemological and metaphysical issues. Philosophical theories and arguments from a comprehensive range of Indian philosophical traditions (including the Nyaya, Mimamsa, Saiva, Vedanta, Samkhya, Jain, Buddhist, materialist and skeptical traditions, as well as (...) some 20th century thought) are covered. The contributors to this volume approach the topics from both a philosophical and a philological perspective. They demonstrate the importance of the subject matter for an understanding of Indian thought in general and they highlight its wider philosophical significance. By developing an appreciation of classical Indian philosophy in its own terms, set against the background of its unique assumptions and historical and cultural development, Indian Epistemology and Metaphysics is an invaluable guide to the current state of scholarship on Indian philosophy. It is a timely and much-needed reference resource, the first of its kind. (shrink)

Two kinds of membrane contacts in the vertebrate lens are described. Fiber gap junctions are domains where small molecules can pass between lens cells. Membrane structures of ball‐and‐socket type interlock adjacent lens fibers and thus contribute to the structural integrity of the lens. Both of these membrane contacts appear crucial for the maintenance of lens transparency.

The intercellular junctions connecting the cytoplasms of fibre cells in the mammalian lens have until recently been regarded as a class of junction which is fundamentally different from that of the gap junctions in other organs. Recent observations, however, suggest that the lens junctions fit protein topology predictions common for all gap junctions. While the homologous peptide portions are predicted to form the channels, the divergent peptide portions of the gap junction polypeptides may adapt channel activity to the special tissue (...) requirements. (shrink)

There has been a long tradition of characterizing man as the animal that is capable of propositional language. However, the remarkable ability of using pictures also only belongs to human beings. Both faculties however depend conceptually on the ability to refer to absent situations by means of sign acts called 'context building'. The paper investigates the combined roles of quasi-pictorial sign acts and proto-assertive sign acts in the situation of initial context building, which, in the context of “concept-genetic” considerations, aims (...) for a philosophical explanation of the anthropological functon of pictures and their relation to imagination. (shrink)

We define aesthetic emotions as emotions that underlie the evaluative assessment of artworks. They are separated from the wider class of art-elicited emotions. Aesthetic emotions historically have been characterized as calm, as lacking specific patterns of embodiment, and as being a sui generis kind of pleasure. We reject those views and argue that there is a plurality of aesthetic emotions contributing to praise. After presenting a general account of the nature of emotions, we analyze twelve positive aesthetic emotions in four (...) different categories: emotions of pleasure, contemplation, amazement, and respect. The emotions that we identify in each category, including feelings of fluency, intrigue, wonder, and adoration, have been widely neglected both within aesthetics and in emotion research more broadly. (shrink)

The non‐self theory is one of the cornerstones of Buddhist philosophy. This chapter examines this theory and discusses some of the issues it raises for Western philosophy of mind, in particular for the problem of free will. In the first part, it traces the non‐self theory through several formulations, focusing on different Buddhist texts. In the second part, it analyzes some of the similarities and dissimilarities of the non‐self theory with discussions of the mind‐body problem and the free will problem (...) in Western philosophy. (shrink)

This paper argues that the still-emerging paradigm of situated cognition requires a more systematic perspective on media to capture the enculturation of the human mind. By virtue of being media, cultural artifacts present central experiential models of the world for our embodied minds to latch onto. The paper identifies references to external media within embodied, extended, enactive, and predictive approaches to cognition, which remain underdeveloped in terms of the profound impact that media have on our mind. To grasp this impact, (...) I propose an enactive account of media that is based on expansive habits as media-structured, embodied ways of bringing forth meaning and new domains of values. We apply such habits, for instance, when seeing a picture or perceiving a movie. They become established through a process of reciprocal adaptation between media artifacts and organisms and define the range of viable actions within such a media ecology. Within an artifactual habit, we then become attuned to a specific media work that engages us. Both the plurality of habits and the dynamical adjustments within a habit require a more flexible neural architecture than is addressed by classical cognitive neuroscience. To detail how neural and media processes interlock, I will introduce the concept of neuromediality and discuss radical predictive processing accounts that could contribute to the externalization of the mind by treating media themselves as generative models of the world. After a short primer on general media theory, I discuss media examples in three domains: pictures and moving images; digital media; architecture and the built environment. This discussion demonstrates the need for a new cognitive media theory based on enactive artifactual habits—one that will help us gain perspective on the continuous re-mediation of our mind. (shrink)