The essential qualities of human nature, including faith, trust, repentance, forgiveness, compassion, and mercy, are discussed in this collection of writings by some of the world's great sages, both ancient and contemporary. The advice of prophets Abraham, Moses, and Muhammad, the wisdom of Confucius and Buddha, and the prudence of saints, scholars, and even cyclists provide expert guidance for those looking to improve their spiritual well-being.

Conformément au protocole défini avec les autorités chypriotes, une opération d’étude et de fouille de la zone du bassin naturel, à l’emplacement supposé du port interne d’Amathonte, a débuté en 2014. Une première campagne de fouilles s’est tenue du 15 septembre au 10 octobre 2014. Elle fut précédée d’une enquête géomorphologique au printemps de la même année. La seconde fouille a eu lieu du 31 août au 25 septembre 2015. Des campagnes intermédiaires d’étude du matériel, essentiellement sur le...

John Rawls is frequently perceived as being an advocate for purely redistributive policies designed to mitigate the consequences of a capitalist economy — an assumption I challenge in this article. My objective is to elucidate the biased nature of this view and provide a comprehensive analysis of the transformation of the corporate landscape that a just society would entail within Rawls's framework. Through a meticulous examination of Rawls's delineation of economic regimes, I underscore the profound — and often unsuspected — (...) implications of liberal egalitarianism on corporate ownership and management. Rawls's proposition of a “property-owning democracy” posits that citizens should retain ownership of shares in companies throughout their lifetimes. Liberal socialism implies the nationalization of the means of production and the socialization of their management. (shrink)

The commons is a concept increasingly used with the promise of creating new collective wealth. In the aftermath of the economic and financial crises, finance and money have been criticized and redesigned to serve the collective interest. In this article, we analyze three types of complementary currency systems: community currencies, inter-enterprise currencies, and cryptocurrencies. We investigate whether these systems can be considered as commons. To address this question, we use two main theoretical frameworks that are usually separate: the “new commons” (...) in organization studies and the “common good” in business ethics. Our findings show that these monetary systems and organizations may be considered as commons under the “common good” framework since they promote the common interest by creating new communities. Nevertheless, according to the “new commons” framework, only systems relying on collective action and self-management can be said to form commons. This allows us to suggest two new categories of commons: the “social commons,” which fit into both the “new commons” and the “common good” frameworks, and the “commercial commons,” which fit the “common good” but not the “new commons” framework. This research advances a new conceptualization of the commons and of the ethical implications of CCs. (shrink)

It is often claimed that there is an explanatory divide between an expressivist account of normative discourse and a realist conception of normativity: more precisely, that expressivism and realism offer conflicting explanations of (i) the metaphysical structure of the normative realm, (ii) the connection between normative judgment and motivation, (iii) our normative beliefs and any convergence thereof, or (iv) the content of normative thoughts and claims. In this paper I argue that there need be no such explanatory conflict. Given a (...) minimalist approach to the relevant metaphysical and semantic notions, expressivism is compatible with any explanation that would be acceptable as a general criterion for realism. (shrink)

How can we distinguish between quasi-realist expressivism and normative realism? The most promising answer to this question is the “explanation” explanation proposed by Dreier (2004), Simpson (2018), and others: the two views might agree in their claims about truth and objectivity, or even in their attributions of semantic content to normative sentences, but they disagree about how to explain normative meaning. Realists explain meaning by invoking normative facts and properties, or representational relations between normative language and the world, the thought (...) goes, while expressivists appeal instead to desire-like mental states in their explanations of meaning. However, I argue that, if we adopt a deflationary approach to representation and other related notions, there need be no such explanatory divide between expressivism and anything recognizable as a plausible notion of normative realism. Any alleged explanatory criterion for realism will either be incompatible with deflationism, or it will fail to capture some standard versions of normative realism. I conclude that, in a deflationary framework, expressivism is compatible with genuine realism. (shrink)

We all could have had better lives, yet often do not wish that our lives had gone differently, especially when we contemplate alternatives that vastly diverge from our actual life course. What, if anything, accounts for such conservative retrospective attitudes? I argue that the right answer involves the significance of our personal attachments and our biographical identity. I also examine other options, such as the absence of self-to-self connections across possible worlds and a general conservatism about value.

Suppose that there are objective normative facts and our beliefs about such facts are by-and-large true. How did this come to happen? This is the reliability challenge to normative realism. As has been recently noted, the challenge also applies to expressivist “quasi-realism”. I argue that expressivism is useful in the face of this challenge, in a way that has not been yet properly articulated. In dealing with epistemological issues, quasi-realists typically invoke the desire-like nature of normative judgments. However, this is (...) not enough to prevent the reliability challenge from arising, given that quasi-realists also hold that normative judgments are truth-apt beliefs. To defuse this challenge, we need to isolate a deeper sense in which normative thought is not representational. I propose that we rely on the negative functional thesis of expressivism: normative thought does not have the function of tracking normative facts, or any other kind of facts. This thesis supports an argument to the effect that it is misguided to expect an explanation of our access to normative facts akin to the explanations available in regions of thought that have a tracking function. We should be content with explanations of our reliability that take for granted certain connections between our psychology and the normative truths. (shrink)

The following scenario seems possible: a community uses concepts that play the same role in guiding actions and shaping social life as our normative concepts, and yet refer to something else. As Eklund argues, this apparent possibility poses a problem for any normative realist who aspires to vindicate the thought that reality itself favors our ways of valuing and acting. How can realists make good on this idea, given that anything they might say in support of the privileged status of (...) our normative concepts can be mirrored by the imagined community? E.g., the realist might claim that using our concepts is what we ought to do if we are to describe normative facts correctly, but members of the other community can claim the same about their concepts, using their own concept of ought. A promising approach to this challenge is to try to rule out the possibility of alternative normative concepts, by arguing that any concepts that have the same normative role must share a reference as well. In this paper I argue that normative quasi-naturalism, a view that combines expressivism about normative discourse with a naturalist metaphysics of normativity, supports referential normativity and solves the problem of alternative normative concepts. (shrink)

Normative naturalism holds that normative properties are identical with, or reducible to, natural properties. Various challenges to naturalism focus on whether it can make good on the idea that normative concepts can be used in systematically different ways and yet have the same reference in all contexts of use. In response to such challenges, some naturalists have proposed that questions about the reference of normative terms should be understood, at least in part, as normative questions that can be settled through (...) normative inquiry. In this paper I have two goals. First, I argue that these naturalist proposals do not yet allow for radical disagreement on normative matters, or at least do not explain how such disagreement is possible. Secondly, I argue that, in order to account for radical disagreement, naturalists should not only treat normative reference as a normative issue but also adopt a non-representationalist account of normative concepts, on which such concepts are individuated through their practical role. I illustrate this point by showing how a view that combines naturalism and expressivism about normative discourse can vindicate the elasticity of normative concepts, their referential stability, and the objectivity of normative truths. (shrink)

It has been argued that there is something morally objectionable about moral realism: for instance, according to realism, we are justified in believing that genocide is wrong only if a certain moral fact obtains, but it is objectionable to hold our moral commitments hostage to metaphysics in this way. In this paper, I argue that no version of this moral argument against realism is likely to succeed. More precisely, minimal realism―the kind of realism on which realist theses are understood as (...) internal to moral discourse―is immune to this challenge, contrary to what some proponents of the moral argument have suggested, while robust non-naturalist realists might have good answers to all versions of the argument as well, at least if they adopt a certain stance on how to form metaphysical beliefs in the moral domain. (shrink)

Dancers and dance philosophers report on experiences of a certain form of sense making and bodily thinking through the dancing body. Yet, discussions on expertise and consciousness are often framed within canonical philosophical world-views that make it difficult to fully recognize, verbalize, and value the full variety of embodied and affective facets of subjectivity. Using qualitative interviews with five professional dancers and choreographers, I make an attempt to disclose the characteristics of what I consider to be a largely overseen state (...) of consciousness: embodied reflection. Dancers are familiar with this attentive bodily presence, which constitutes their work mode and heightens their abilities as experts. Detailed descriptions of their daily work at the theatre help us grasp the qualities and understand the enigmas of the absorbed state of bodily thinking. Husserl’s theories on reflection and Merleau-Ponty’s work on motoricity support our understanding of the structures behind embodied reflection. I believe it is a common human resource, and that whether we are experts or not, we all have the ability to reflect non-conceptually through bodily and/or affective activity. (shrink)

My objective here is to give an account of self-deprecating humor—examining what works, what doesn't, and why—and to reflect on the significance of the audience response. More specifically, I will be focusing not only on the purpose or intention behind self-deprecating jokes, but considering how their consequences might render them successful or unsuccessful. For example, under what circumstances does self-deprecation tend to put listeners at ease, and when is this type of humor more likely to put people off? I will (...) also consider the ways in which self-deprecating jokes are similar to gallows humor, and the extent to which context counts. The target or "butt" of these jokes, in cases of self-deprecation as well as gallows humor, will be explored; as will whether or not the audience bears some responsibility or has a role to play in the ultimate success or failure of a joke. For instance, is the audience role a completely receptive and passive one? Is the joker/jokee relationship one which confers no responsibility on the listener whatsoever? Or, do listeners have an obligation to respond with appreciative laughter to mere attempts at humor, especially the self-deprecating sort, by accepting such levity in the spirit in which it is intended? Does this mean that being a good sport—responding generously or appreciatively when a well-intentioned joke fails to land—would be a habit worth cultivating? If so and courtesy laughter or a playful appreciation of self-deprecating humor is something that can be cultivated, what specifically would that entail? In sum, although I cannot fully or definitively answer each and every one of these questions, I do hope to provide some provisional responses. To better situate the nature of self-deprecation, I will not only provide a brief description of the gallows genre, I will also explore two traditional theories of humor. Those that are particularly relevant, to both gallows and self-deprecating humor are Freud's relief theory and the incongruity view. In addition, I will identify what I believe to be the three essential ingredients of successful self-deprecation and, finally, will conclude with the argument that audiences or listeners do have an important role to play. And, moreover, that generous, appreciative laughter can and should be cultivated—even though this is something that will largely depend on one's personal history and habits, dispositional character and cultural background. (shrink)

La question de la religion - de son essence, de sa fonction, de son origine - a été centrale dans la sociologie et l'anthropologie classiques. Pour la tirer des impasses et de la stagnation où elle est reléguée de nos jours, Camille Tarot propose ici un bilan critique des œuvres des meilleurs comparatistes, à travers leurs théories si contradictoires de la religion. Huit auteurs principaux sont soumis à examen : Emile Durkheim, Marcel Mauss, Mircéa Eliade, Georges Dumézil, Claude Lévi-Strauss, (...) René Girard, Pierre Bourdieu et Marcel Gauchet. L'important en la matière est d'abord d'esquiver les faux irénismes comme les querelles stériles ou haineuses, pour confronter les doctrines en profondeur et systématiquement. Ensuite, de déceler l'impensé et les refoulements que produit chaque cadre théorique, pour proposer le modèle ou l'idéal-type de la religion qui paraît le mieux fondé. Au fil de cet examen, il apparaît que l'essence du fait religieux est à rechercher à l'intersection du symbolique et du sacré, à comprendre à partir des fondations d'Emile Durkheim et de Marcel Mauss, complétées par les apports de René Girard. La possible fécondité du modèle qui se dégage ainsi s'atteste par sa capacité à relire les sources et à renouveler en profondeur les vieux problèmes des fonctions de la religion, qui n'avaient guère avancé depuis Emile Durkheim. (shrink)

Over the last decade, personalized medicine has become a buzz word, which covers a broad spectrum of meanings and generates many different opinions. The purpose of this article is to achieve a better understanding of the reasons why personalized medicine gives rise to such conflicting opinions. We show that a major issue of personalized medicine is the gap existing between its claims and its reality. We then present and analyze different possible reasons for this gap. We propose an hypothesis inspired (...) by the Windelband’s distinction between nomothetic and idiographic methodology. We argue that the fuzzy situation of personalized medicine results from a mix between idiographic claims and nomothetic methodological procedures. Hence we suggest that the current quandary about personalized medicine cannot be solved without getting involved in a discussion about the complex epistemological and methodological status of medicine. To conclude, we show that the Gadamer’s view of medicine as a dialogical process can be fruitfully used and reveals that personalization is not a theoretical task, but a practical one, which takes place within the clinical encounter. (shrink)

How can we rationally make peace with our past moral failings, while committing to avoid similar mistakes in the future? Is it because we cannot do anything about the past, while the future is still open? Or is it that regret for our past mistakes is psychologically harmful, and we need to forgive ourselves in order to be able to move on? Or is it because moral mistakes enable our moral growth? I argue that these and other answers do not (...) properly resolve the problem of temporal asymmetry in our attitudes toward moral imperfection, and I defend an alternative response, centered on our personal attachments and our biographical identity. (shrink)

The authors examine the nursing practice of disposing unaltered controlled substances into public water systems as an issue for nurses concerned with the environmental harm it can cause. A summary of the history of controlled substance management reveals inconsistencies in the interpretation of current regulations that have led to disposal policies that vary by institution, according to a benchmarking survey of regional hospitals. Much attention has been given to the phenomenon of conscientious objection in the context of patient care that (...) conflicts with a nurse’s moral integrity. Nurses who are compelled to dispose narcotics down drains may also face this struggle. The authors submit that this disposal method is based on a type of double effect logic where preventing diversion is viewed as a good effect of flushing unused controlled substances that outweighs any harm it may cause, though there is little evidence to support this conclusion. Consequently, the topic deserves further study so that nurse managers and administrators can support and offer alternatives to nurses who object to flushing drugs down the drain. (shrink)

The agroecological transition of agriculture not only requires changes in practices but also in ways of thinking and in their underlying values. Agroecology proposes broad scientific principles that need to be adapted to the singularities of each farm. This contextualization leads to the identification of agroecological practices that work locally and could serve as evidence-based practices to be transferred to local practitioners. This strategy was tested in a 4-year experiment conducted with dairy-sheep farmers in the South of France. The aim (...) was to collectively engage in the agroecological transition. Our work focused on the creation of a diagnostic tool that was used to analyze local farms and identify virtuous practices to be promoted locally as evidence-based practices. But this strategy came up against the complexity and singularity of the situations to be transformed: not only was no evidence found but the construction of the diagnostic tool itself led to controversy concerning the models of agriculture to be promoted. The experiment then took a pragmatic turn: on-farm workshops were organized to enable farmers to benefit from the professional judgment of peer farmers who were willing to help their colleagues accomplish their agroecological transition. The diagnostic tool, which was designed to be prescriptive, was then used to judge the social acceptability of solutions that made sense in each farmer’s own situation. Our experiment led us to conclude that managing the agro-ecological transition of farmers and their farming system is better conceived as a value-based process than as an evidence-based one. (shrink)

Cet article se donne pour objectif de réfléchir à ce que la crise mondiale du Covid-19 a révélé de nos manières d’habiter les lieux où nous vivons, et parmi celles-ci, la pratique de la danse. La démarche adoptée ici est celle d’un dialogue entre trois courants philosophiques spécifiques : la phénoménologie, le pragmatisme et l’écoféminisme, au sujet de leur conception de l’expérience somatique, à la fois vécue, complexe et ordinaire. Nous cherchons ici les lignes communes à ces trois mouvements philosophiques, (...) dans le but d’esquisser une compréhensions nouvelle du corps, et par extension, une nouvelle approche de la danse par temps de crise pandémique. (shrink)

Cet article se donne pour objectif de réfléchir à ce que la crise mondiale du Covid-19 a révélé de nos manières d’habiter les lieux où nous vivons, et parmi celles-ci, la pratique de la danse. La démarche adoptée ici est celle d’un dialogue entre trois courants philosophiques spécifiques : la phénoménologie, le pragmatisme et l’écoféminisme, au sujet de leur conception de l’expérience somatique, à la fois vécue, complexe et ordinaire. Nous cherchons ici les lignes communes à ces trois mouvements philosophiques, (...) dans le but d’esquisser une compréhensions nouvelle du corps, et par extension, une nouvelle approche de la danse par temps de crise pandémique. (shrink)

While often presented as promising assistive technologies for motor-impaired users, electroencephalography (EEG)-based Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) remain barely used outside laboratories due to low reliability in real-life conditions. There is thus a need to design long-term reliable BCIs that can be used outside-of-the-lab by end-users, e.g., severely motor-impaired ones. Therefore, we propose and evaluate the design of a multi-class Mental Task (MT)-based BCI for longitudinal training (20 sessions over 3 months) of a tetraplegic user for the CYBATHLON BCI series 2019. In (...) this BCI championship, tetraplegic pilots are mentally driving a virtual car in a racing video game. We aimed at combining a progressive user MT-BCI training with a newly designed machine learning pipeline based on adaptive Riemannian classifiers shown to be promising for real-life applications. We followed a two step training process: the first 11 sessions served to train the user to control a 2-class MT-BCI by performing either two cognitive tasks (REST and MENTAL SUBTRACTION) or two motor-imagery tasks (LEFT-HAND and RIGHT-HAND). The second training step (9 remaining sessions) applied an adaptive, session-independent Riemannian classifier that combined all 4 MT classes used before. Moreover, as our Riemannian classifier was incrementally updated in an unsupervised way it would capture both within and between-session non-stationarity. Experimental evidences confirm the effectiveness of this approach. Namely, the classification accuracy improved by about 30% at the end of the training compared to initial sessions. We also studied the neural correlates of this performance improvement. Using a newly proposed BCI user learning metric, we could show our user learned to improve his BCI control by producing EEG signals matching increasingly more the BCI classifier training data distribution, rather than by improving his EEG class discrimination. However, the resulting improvement was effective only on synchronous (cue-based) BCI and it did not translate into improved CYBATHLON BCI game performances. For the sake of overcoming this in the future, we unveil possible reasons for these limited gaming performances and identify a number of promising future research directions. Importantly, we also report on the evolution of the user's neurophysiological patterns and user experience throughout the BCI training and competition. (shrink)

The past 10 years have seen considerable developments in the use of narrative in medicine, primarily through the emergence of the so-called narrative medicine. In this article, I question narrative medicine’s self-understanding and contend that one of the most prominent issues is its lack of a clear epistemological framework. Drawing from Gadamer’s work on hermeneutics, I first show that narrative medicine is deeply linked with the hermeneutical field of knowledge. Then I try to identify which claims can be legitimately expected (...) from narrative medicine, and which ones cannot be. I scrutinize in particular whether narrative medicine can legitimately grasp the patient’s lived experience of his or her illness. In the last section of this article, I begin to explore the potential usefulness of this epistemological clarification. This analysis allows for a further understanding of what is really at stake with narrative medicine, and thus to identify when it may be convenient, and when it may not. Furthermore, this clarification opens up promising new possibilities of dialogue with critics of the field. I conclude that narrative medicine finds its proper place as a possible tool available to mediate dialogue, which is at the heart of the clinical encounter in medical practice. (shrink)

Résumé Pour le poète Daumal, le poème est le fruit d’un couple formé du poète et de son récepteur. Le slam est partage poétique, communion avec un public. Il est l’expression d’un lyrisme contemporain, lieu d’une mise en abyme du désir. Nous nous proposons de l’envisager comme mise à nu d’un langage éminemment créatif, avec de nombreuses « conversions » (néologies syntaxiques), « fusions » sous la forme de mots-valises (morphologiques) et métaphores (sémantiques). Ces différents procédés, susceptibles de se combiner, (...) traduisent la fusion des corps, s’agissant du corps même de la langue. (shrink)

_Advancing Equity and Achievement in America’s Diverse Schools _illustrates how educators, students, families and community partners can work in strategic ways to build on social, cultural, and ethnic diversity to advance educational equity and achievement. By drawing on the latest data on demographic change, constructions of culture and cultural difference, and the politics of school reform in urban, rural, and suburban school communities, this volume looks toward solutions and strategies for meaningful educational improvement. Contributors consider both the diversity of youth (...) and families served in public schools, and the culture of U.S. schooling, highlighting the influence of policy and reform agendas; students’ identities and agency; experiences and approaches of diverse educators; and the workings of effective school partnerships. Chapters also focus on those often overlooked in educational scholarship such as Native Americans, students experiencing poverty and/or homelessness, Muslim students, students with special needs, and students and educators who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, or queer. In all, this edited collection stresses the need for high quality education that is inclusive, culturally responsive and unifying so all students can experience academic success. This book is a meaningful resource for educators, policymakers, and community-based leaders interested in doing such transformative work. (shrink)

A revival of the dialogue between phenomenology and psychiatry currently takes place in the best international journals of psychiatry. In this article, we analyse this revival and the role given to phenomenology in this context. Although this dialogue seems at first sight interesting, we show that it is problematic. It leads indeed to use phenomenology in a special way, transforming it into a discipline dealing with empirical facts, so that what is called “phenomenology” has finally nothing to do with phenomenology. (...) This so-called phenomenology tallies however with what we have always called semiology. We try to explain the reasons why phenomenology is misused in that way. In our view, this transformation of phenomenology into an empirical and objectifying discipline is explained by the role attributed to phenomenology by contemporary authors, which is to solve the problems raised by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. (shrink)

Shen et al. (2024) have articulated the many opportunities as well as notable challenges associated with the emerging practice of returning individual research results (IRR) specific to digital phe...

A model frequently used to implement community‐based research involves engaging local community health workers who are trusted members of the community and familiar with local customs, language, and culture. In Spanish‐speaking communities, the CHWs are also known as promotores de salud (“health promoters”). Depending on the study design and nature of the research, promotores facilitate research through community outreach, instrument design, participant recruitment, intervention delivery, data collection, and other research‐related tasks. In 2000, the National Institutes of Health published a regulation (...) requiring training of “key personnel” named on NIH‐supported research involving human subjects. Regardless of whether promotores are technically designated as key personnel on a particular study, they may benefit from training in research ethics. Unfortunately, the educational programs designed for academic researchers in response to the NIH mandate were poorly aligned with the needs of promotores and not suited for learning about human research ethics applied to the community health setting. For example, many promotores in our California‐Mexico border region are monolingual Spanish speakers who have no formal academic research training. Therefore, we set out to develop a training alternative appropriate to our local CHWs. In this essay, we provide overviews of the relevant instructional design principles and our formative research process, including examples of key findings. (shrink)

The foundation for a system of morals, this 1749 work is a landmark of moral and political thought. Its highly original theories of conscience, moral judgment, and virtue offer a reconstruction of the Enlightenment concept of social science, embracing both political economy and theories of law and government.

Philosophers investigating the experiences of the dancing subject (Sheets-Johnstone 1980, 2009, 2011, 2012; Parviainen 1998; Legrand 2007, 2013; Legrand & Ravn 2009; Montero 2013; Foultier & Roos 2013) unearth vast variations of embodied consciousness and cognition in performing body experts. The traditional phenomenological literature provides us with descriptions and definitions of reflective self-consciousness as well as of pre-reflective bodily absorption, but when it comes to the states of self-consciousness dance philosophers refer to as thinking in movement and a form of (...) reflective consciousness at a bodily level – as well as to dancers’ re- ported experiences of being in a trance and yet hyper-aware – we are challenged in terms of terminology and precise descriptions. After empirical research on dancers’ experiences and studies of the above-mentioned philosophies of dance, aligning this material with Husserl, Zahavi and other phenomenologists’ descriptions of reflection and embodied self-consciousness, I find it plausible to acknowledge the existence of a third form of self- consciousness: embodied reflection, a reflective process experienced through and with the embodied and/or emotional self. In this article I aspire to capture the characteristics of this transcendence of the bodily self. (shrink)

This article offers a descriptive and analytic view of the different stages leading to the constitution of a corpus that is representative of the issues of climate and energy justice. Overall, the corpus contains over five million words and gathers reports, newsletters and web-pages dealing with the most equitable ways of moving to a low-carbon future in the aim of limiting climate change. It can be divided into six sub-corpora, according to types of discourse communities, and methods of constitution. We (...) begin by presenting the small Do It Yourself (DIY) corpora which were used as a starting point. Three discourse communities were selected to observe possible variation in their treatment of the issue: Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), United-Nation institutions, and the Renewable Energy Sector (RES). The sources are selected according to author, date, keywords in title. Using the concordance Antconc and WMatrix software we test the reliability of the corpora for their thematic content, terminology and lexical unit classification. Our first results enable us to confirm variation between the discourse communities. The discrepancy in sizes and the time-consuming nature of the initial DIY corpus constitution lead us to use BootCat to extend them, using keywords from the corpora as seeds to retrieve and download webpages. We thus contrast a more traditional approach to corpus building to web-as-corpus data gathering methods. We compare the results found in the BootCat corpora to test if they are as specific as those in the DIY corpora. This enables us to draw conclusions on the possible uses and advantages of relatively small corpora for the study of specialised discourse. (shrink)

BackgroundOver the past decade, the exponential growth of the literature devoted to personalized medicine has been paralleled by an ever louder chorus of epistemic and ethical criticisms. Their differences notwithstanding, both advocates and critics share an outdated philosophical understanding of the concept of personhood and hence tend to assume too simplistic an understanding of personalization in health care.MethodsIn this article, we question this philosophical understanding of personhood and personalization, as these concepts shape the field of personalized medicine. We establish a (...) dialogue with phenomenology and hermeneutics (especially with E. Husserl, M. Merleau-Ponty and P. Ricoeur) in order to achieve a more sophisticated understanding of the meaning of these concepts We particularly focus on the relationship between personal subjectivity and objective data.ResultsWe first explore the gap between the ideal of personalized healthcare and the reality of today’s personalized medicine. We show that the nearly exclusive focus of personalized medicine on the objective part of personhood leads to a flawed ethical debate that needs to be reframed. Second, we seek to contribute to this reframing by drawing on the phenomenological-hermeneutical movement in philosophy. Third, we show that these admittedly theoretical analyses open up new conceptual possibilities to tackle the very practical ethical challenges that personalized medicine faces.ConclusionFinally, we propose a reversal: if personalization is a continuous process by which the person reappropriates all manner of objective data, giving them meaning and thereby shaping his or her own way of being human, then personalized medicine, rather than being personalized itself, can facilitate personalization of those it serves through the data it provides. (shrink)

Recent attempts by American theorists to produce a radical politics, characterized by the effort to translate the insights of Continental philosophy into a political register, remain trapped in that which they purport to transcend: the metaphysics of subjectivity. In their essential determinations, the works of William Connolly, Stephen White, Richard Ashley, etc. remain firmly anchored in a traditional liberal schema. The reason for this is that while these efforts have sought to de-center political identity by exposing its relational character they (...) have not re-thought 'rela tionality' itself. Our attempt to develop the more profound political impli cations of 'relationality' unfolds through a synthetic explication of Martin Heidegger's analysis of language, Jacques Derrida's logic of the gift, and Emmanuel Levinas' consideration of the Other. The emergent thematic of asymmetrical relationality reconfigures liberalism and provides for a rethinking of the structure of welfare. (shrink)