In spite of recent efforts to promote cooperation between universities and industry, Germany still lacks a sufficient legal framework for regulating potential conflicts of interest resulting from university-industry cooperation. Prospective regulation of conflicts of interest has to take into account specific constraints imposed by the German constitution. It has to follow stringent procedural and material requirements and carefully weigh the individual researcher’s right to academic freedom against the public demand for objectivity in research. Because of this cautious consideration of the (...) conflicting interests constitutionally mandated in Germany, a potential regulation legitimate in this country may serve as a model for other countries facing the need of the adoption of such a regulation. (shrink)
Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden Mats G. Hansson Uppsala University, Sweden Jan Carlstedt-Duke Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden Martin Ritzen Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden Ingemar Persson Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden Helle Kieler Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden * Corresponding author: Christina M. Hultman, Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Box 281, SE-171 77 Stockholm, Sweden. Tel.: +46 8 52483893; +46 70 3621031; Fax: +46 8 314975; Email: Christina.Hultman{at}ki.se ' + u + '@' + d + ' '//--> Abstract Since the 1970s, (...) estrogen have sometimes been used in adolescent girls to reduce very tall adult expected height. Worries about long-term effects have led to a proposal to link treatment data with cancer registers. How should one deal with informed consent for such a study? We designed a qualitative study with semi-structured telephone interviews. From 1200 women who were to be followed-up in cancer registers, we randomly selected 22 women. Major themes were a wish to be involved and a positive attitude to the proposed register research. The women did not express worry after reading the study protocol, but did convey considerable frustration that this research had not been initiated earlier. Active consent was not seen as crucial. We found strong interest in a high participation rate and a concern over missing data. The selection of information and consent or the decision to go ahead without consent in register follow-up is a delicate balancing act. Study participants wish to be contacted, but acknowledge the primary goal of answering important questions. Our study provides support for safeguarding privacy in epidemiological linkage studies and in follow-up of medical treatment without losing the scientific value by requesting for informed consent. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)
At this point in time, it is hard to say which consequences for the concept of mental illness result from modern genetics. Current research projects are trying to find significant statistical correlations between the diagnosis of a disease and a gene locus or an endophenotype. Up until now, there has not been any identification of alleles or mutations causing mental illness. In the meantime, the relations between the genetic basis and the disease are given the term genetic vulnerability as a (...) placeholder; this concept simplifies the complex relations between the DNA and even the simplest cell functions observed in modern genetics. According to complex gene models like the systemic theory of DNA, it will not be possible to identify the genetic factors without a precise knowledge of the factors which modulate the gene expression. The significance of genetics as part of the concept of mental illness will not be able to be defined without further progress in developmental biology and psychology. Currently, psychological theory fails to acknowledge the complexity of the relationship between the DNA and the environment. Some starting points from which to develop such an understanding can be received from developmental studies and studies of the psychophylogenesis . An interdisciplinary concept of the biological basis of the psyche is needed. (shrink)
The demand for science trainees to have appropriate responsible conduct of research instruction continues to increase the attention shown by federal agencies and graduate school programs to the development of effective ethics curriculums. However, it is important to consider that the main learning environment for science graduate students and post-doctoral research fellows is within a laboratory setting. Here we discuss an internal laboratory program of weekly 15-minute ethics discussions implemented and used over the last 3 years in addition to the (...) graduate school’s program of scientific integrity training. During this time, the environment and culture within our laboratory has changed to place greater emphasis on the ethical implications of our own research and the research we evaluate. We still struggle with how to accurately assess this behavioral change; although, we present preliminary survey results on the evaluation and impact of this style of curriculum for ethics instruction in our laboratory. (shrink)
This article re-orients Heidegger’s analyses of things to cast light on two distinct ways of relating to things, one at the root of technological use and the other crucial to artistic creation. The first way, which we may call instrumental practice, denotes the activity of using something to accomplish some goal or objective. This practice underlies the analysis of use-things [Zeuge] that Heidegger presents in Being and Time. Heidegger’s contribution there is twofold: to show how understanding things as zuhanden, there (...) for us, is prior to taking things as objects in “nature,” and to clarify how the “phenomenon of the world” can show itself when a useful thing becomes dysfunctional. But Heidegger’s focus on the thing as zuhanden leaves in the dark a second kind of practice that we engage in when we relate to things, the practice of attending to an activity for its own sake, as I illustrate by the using or making of four things: the hammer, the Daoist cook’s cleaver, the Daoist-inspired empty jug or Krug, and the Japanese calligrapher’s brush. Heidegger’s dialogue on Gelassenheit anticipates but also cuts short this practice of attention: gelassenes Denken—the thinking that lets go of representations and expectations and simply lets things be—promises to open a way to experience our essential nature [Wesen], but the dialogue’s focus on things as already there or already made distracts from the practice of attention that goes into the art of making things like jugs. By re-orienting Heidegger’s thinking we are able to recast the question of technology: can the practice of attention performed for its own sake—caring for things simply to care for them, caring for the surrounding world simply to care for it—help salvage not only the environment but the very essence of being human? (shrink)
This paper explores the epistemological impact of the idea of post-secularism on the concept of public reason. It does so by examining a strand of the Rawls-Habermas debate on the role of religious beliefs within public reason. The paper identifies a difficulty in the liberal solution that depends upon the unwillingness to challenge the proviso-like conception of public reason and contends that this difficulty is overcome neither by Habermas’ “institutional” version of proviso nor by Cristina Lafont’s version of “mutual accountability” (...) proviso. Once acknowledged this blind spot in the theory of public reason, the paper proceeds to show that a pragmatist-based conception of public reason can overcome this shortcoming as it grants to religious beliefs a role that does not compromise the liberal ethics of citizenship while at the same time does not frustrate the communitarian and religious call for a less restrictive conception of the public sphere. The conclusion this paper brings home is that a proviso-free public reason is necessary for tackling the theoretical challenge of defending liberalism in a post-secular society. (shrink)
Being and God: A Systematic Approach in Confrontation with Martin Heidegger, Emmanuel Levinas, and Jean-Luc Marion , by Lorenz B. Puntel Content Type Journal Article Pages 164-165 Authors Christina M. Gschwandtner, University of Scranton Journal Comparative and Continental Philosophy Online ISSN 1757-0646 Print ISSN 1757-0638 Journal Volume Volume 4 Journal Issue Volume 4, Number 1 / 2012.
In this essay, I will lay out first in some detail the exegetical principles implicit in Augustine's treatment of an early apparent conflict between Scripture and the findings of “sense or reason.” Then I will analyze Galileo's two major discussions of the issue, first in his Letter to Castelli, and then in his Letter to the Grand Duchess, touching on Foscarini's ill-fated Letter in between. I will turn then to an internal tension that many commentators have perceived within the exegetic (...) principles that Galileo deploys in meeting the theological challenge to Copernicanism. The tension was, broadly speaking, between two rather different strategies for dealing with that challenge. According to the more radical choice, the strategy would be to deny the relevance of Scripture to our knowledge of the natural world. The more conservative strategy would be to allow that the authority of divine revelation extended to passages in Scripture describing features of the natural world but also to admit that where this description clashed with something that could be demonstrated through “sense or reason,” an alternative to the literal, everyday, meaning of the Scripture passage should be sought. This latter proviso would imply that even in this, the most conservative, approach, theology is not being given absolute priority over natural philosophy. (shrink)
In this paper we offer an exegesis of Hilary Putnam’s classic argument against the brain-in-avat hypothesis offered in his Reason, truth and history (1981). In it, Putnam argues that we cannot be brains in a vat because the semantics of the situation make it incoherent for anyone to wonder whether they are a brain a vat. Putnam’s argument is that in order for ‘I am a brain in a vat’ to be true, the person uttering it would have to be (...) able to refer successfully to those things: the vat, and the envatted brain. Putnam thinks that reference can’t be secured without relevant kinds of causal relations, which, if envatted, the brain would lack, and so, it fails to be able to meaningfully utter ‘I am a brain in a vat’. We consider the implications of Putnam’s arguments for the traditional sceptic. In conclusion, we discuss the role of Putnam’s arguments against the brain in a vat hypothesis in his larger defense of his own internal realism against metaphysical realism. (shrink)
In this paper I analyze the tension between realism and antirealism at the basis of Kantian constructivism. This tension generates a conflictive account of the source of the validity of social norms. On the one hand, the claim to moral objectivity characteristic of Kantian moral theories makes the validity of norms depend on realist assumptions concerning the existence of shared fundamental interests among all rational human beings. I illustrate this claim through a comparison of the approaches of Rawls, Habermas and (...) Scanlon. On the other hand, however, objections to moral realism motivate many Kantian constructivists to endorse the antirealist claim that reasonable agreement is the source of the validity of social norms. After analyzing the difficulties in the latter strategy, I try to show how a balance between the realist and antirealist elements of Kantian constructivism can be reached by drawing a sharper distinction between the justice and the legitimacy of social norms. (shrink)
Both macaque monkeys and humans have been shown to have what are called ‘mirror neurons’, a class of neurons that respond to goal-related motor-actions, both when these actions are performed by the subject and when they are performed by another individual observed by the subject. Gallese and Goldman (1998) contend that mirror neurons may be seen as ‘a part of, or a precursor to, a more general mind- reading ability’, and that of the two competing theories of mind-reading, mirror neurons (...) lend support to simulation theory. I here offer four reasons why I think mirror neurons do not provide support for simulation theory over its contender, theory theory. (shrink)
Poverty of the Stimulus Arguments have convinced many linguists and philosophers of language that a domain specific language acquisition device (LAD) is necessary to account for language learning. Here we review empirical evidence that casts doubt on the necessity of this domain specific device. We suggest that more attention needs to be paid to the early stages of language acquisition. Many seemingly innate language-related abilities have to be learned over the course of several months. Further, the language input contains rich (...) stochastic information that can be accessed by domain-general learning mechanisms. Computer simulation has shown how mechanisms that are not domain specific can exploit the information contained in language. We conclude that (i) Poverty of the Stimulus Arguments need to be conceptually clarified and (ii) more empirical research needs to be carried out before we can rule out that data driven general purpose mechanisms can account for language learning. (shrink)
This collection of ground-breaking essays considers the many dimensions of prayer: how prayer relates us to the divine; prayer's ability to reveal what is essential about our humanity; the power of prayer to transform human desire and action; and the relation of prayer to cognition. It takes up the meaning of prayer from within a uniquely phenomenological point of view, demonstrating that the phenomenology of prayer is as much about the character and boundaries of phenomenological analysis as it is about (...) the heart of religious life.The contributors: Michael F. Andrews, Bruce Ellis Benson, Mark Cauchi, Benjamin Crowe, Mark Gedney, Philip Goodchild, Christina M. Gschwandtner, Lissa McCullough, Cleo McNelly Kearns, Edward F. Mooney, B. Keith Putt, Jill Robbins, Brian Treanor, Merold Westphal, Norman Wirzba, Terence Wright and Terence and James R. Mensch. Bruce Ellis Benson is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Wheaton College. He is the author of Graven Ideologies: Nietzsche, Derrida, and Marion on Modern Idolatry and The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue: A Phenomenology of Music. Norman Wirzba is Associate Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Georgetown College, Kentucky. He is the author of The Paradise of God and editor of The Essential Agrarian Reader. (shrink)
In this article I examine Jean-Luc Marion's two-fold criticism of Emmanuel Levinas’ philosophy of other and self, namely that Levinas remains unable to overcome ontological difference in Totality and Infinity and does so successfully only with the notion of the appeal in Otherwise than Being and that his account of alterity is ambiguous in failing to distinguish clearly between human and divine other. I outline Levinas’ response to this criticism and then critically examine Marion's own account of subjectivity that attempts (...) to go beyond Levinas in its emphasis on a pure or anonymous appeal. I criticize this move as rather problematic and turn instead back to Levinas for a more convincing account of the relations between self, human other, and God. In this context, I also show that Levinas in fact draws quite careful distinctions between human and divine others. (shrink)
In his essay Religion in the Public Sphere ,” Habermas joins the debate between liberals and critics of liberalism on the proper role of religion in the public sphere. His proposal focuses on what each side of the debate gets right: the liberal emphasis on the obligation to provide nonreligious reasons in support of coercive policies with which all citizens must comply, on one side, and the critic’s insistence on the right of religious citizens to adopt their religious stance in (...) public deliberation about such policies, on the other. Habermas agrees with the liberal position in defending the separation of church and state, and thus the institutional priority of nonreligious reasons in politics. Consequently, he accepts the Rawlsian view that nonreligious reasons must be offered to justify coercive policies in political deliberation at the institutional level of parliaments, courts, ministries and administrations, that is, in the formal public sphere. But he proposes to eliminate this requirement in the informal public sphere. Religious citizens who participate in political advocacy in the informal public sphere can offer exclusively religious reasons in support of the policies they favor in the hope that they may be translated into nonreligious reasons. But the obligation of translation should not fall exclusively on the shoulders of religious citizens, as the Rawlsian approach suggests. According to Habermas, secular citizens must share the burden of translating religious into nonreligious reasons. In order to do so, they have to take religious reasons seriously and should not deny their possible truth from the outset. (shrink)
In several lectures, interviews and essays from the early 1980s, Michel Foucault startlingly argues that he is engaged in a kind of critical work that is similar to that of Immanuel Kant. Given Foucault's criticisms of Kantian and Enlightenment emphases on universal truths and values, his declaration that his work is Kantian seems paradoxical. I agree with some commentators who argue that this is a way for Foucault to publicly acknowledge to his critics that he is not, as some of (...) them charge, attempting a total critique of Enlightenment beliefs and values, but is instead attempting to transform them from within. I argue further that Foucault's self-professed Kantianism can also productively be read as a means of encouraging change in his intellectual audience, a call to courage to take up the thread of Enlightenment thought that Foucault finds in Kant's essay, `What is Enlightenment?': that of directing one's philosophical efforts towards questioning and transforming one's own present in its historical specificity, for the sake of promoting the values of freedom and autonomy therein. Though much of Kant's philosophical work is focused on that which lies outside of history, Foucault locates in some of it a concern for what is happening here and now that, I argue, he encourages his audience to take up for themselves through tracing his own intellectual lineage to Kant. In so doing, he encourages contemporary philosophers to consider the value and effects of their work on the present social and political contexts in which they live. (shrink)
To explore the potential evolutionary relevance of heritable epigenetic variation, the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center recently hosted a catalysis meeting that brought together molecular epigeneticists, experimental evolutionary ecologists, and theoretical population and quantitative geneticists working across a wide variety of systems. The group discussed the methods available to investigate epigenetic variation and epigenetic inheritance, and how to evaluate their importance for phenotypic evolution. We found that understanding the relevance of epigenetic effects in phe- notypic evolution will require clearly delineating epigenetics (...) within existing terminology and expanding research efforts into ecologically relevant circumstances across model and nonmodel organisms. In addition, a critical component of understanding epigenetics will be the development of new and current statistical approaches and expansion of quantitative and population genetic theory. Although the importance of heritable epigenetic effects on evolution is still under discussion, investigating them in the context of a multidisciplinary approach could transform the field. (shrink)
In his “Space, supervenience and substantivalism”, Le Poidevin proposes a substantivalism in which space is discrete, implying that there are unmediated spatial relations between neighboring primitive points. This proposition is motivated by his concern that relationism suffers from an explanatory lacuna and that substantivalism gives rise to a vicious regress. Le Poidevin implicitly requires that the relationist be committed to the “only x and y ” principle regarding spatial relations. It is not obvious that the relationist is committed to this (...) principle in such a context. An additional motivation for Le Poidevin's argument, that space should be considered to be discrete, is that he believes that substantivalists are committed to a vicious regress. I show that the regress is in fact not of the vicious variety. These two main arguments show that Le Poidevin's suggestion that we drop the density postulate for space is unnecessary. (shrink)
We advocate and share the same theoretical framework for empirical research in ethics as exemplified in Christina Bicchieri’s The Grammar of Society. Our research differs from Bicchieri’s in our approach to experimentation: where she relies on lab experiments, we have constructed an experimental platform based on an internet survey instrument; where she relies on rational reconstructions, we do not. In this paper we focus on four contrasts in our methods: (1) we provide a space to explore ethical influence and (...) norm transmission between participants, belief and choice revision, and reputation over time; (2) we provide ways for participants to expand the context of their and others’ decisions; (3) we focus on more realistic ethical decisions than is allowed by games; and (4) we explain why Bicchieri’s method of rational reconstructions presents challenges to her theory of social norms. Our methods are complementary to Bicchieri’s, and together we can work toward developing more comprehensive empirically informed ethics. †To contact the authors, please write to Peter Danielson, W. Maurice Young Centre for Applied Ethics, University of British Columbia, 227‐6356 Agricultural Road, Vancouver, V6T 1Z2, Canada; e‐mail: pad@ethics.ubc.ca. (shrink)
Contemporary cognitive psychology is dominated by an individualistic and mentalistic approach to the mind.This Cartesian heritage is evident in studies of social understanding, that is, how we understand others. It is argued that this approach and metaphors like reading minds have failed, and should be replaced with a discursive approach, where public and shared socio-linguistic intenand normative activities order and shape individual mental activities.
In the published version of Hugh Everett III’s doctoral dissertation, he inserted what has become a famous footnote, the ‘‘note added in proof’’. This footnote is often the strongest evidence given for any of various interpretations of Everett (the many worlds, many minds, many histories and many threads interpretations). In this paper I will propose a new interpretation of the footnote. One that is supported by evidence found in letters written to and by Everett; one that is suggested by a (...) new interpretation of Everett, an interpretation that takes seriously the central position of relative states in Everett’s pure wave mechanics: the relative facts interpretation. Of central interest in this paper is how to make sense of Everett’s claim in the ‘‘note added in proof’’ that ‘‘all elements of a superposition (all ‘‘branches’’) are ‘‘actual,’’ none any more ‘‘real’’ than the rest.’’. (shrink)
Christina Lafont has argued that the early Heidegger's reflections on truth and understanding are incompatible with ‘the supposition of a single objective world’. This paper presents her argument, reviews some responses that the existing Heidegger literature suggests (focusing, in particular, on work by John Haugeland), and offers what I argue is a superior response. Building on a deeper exploration of just what the above ‘supposition’ demands (an exploration informed by the work of Bernard Williams and Adrian Moore), I argue (...) that a crucial assumption that Lafont and Haugeland both accept must be rejected, namely, that different ‘understandings of Being’ can be viewed as offering ‘rival perspectives’ on a common subject-matter. I develop this case by drawing on an alternative account of what a Heideggerian ‘understanding of Being’ might be like. (shrink)
: This paper reviews current and suggested policies designed to increase organ donation in the United States and indicates the problems inherent to these approaches for increasing organ donation by African Americans. Data from a population-based study assessing attitudes and beliefs about organ donation among white and African-American respondents are presented and discussed. We pose the question of whether it is reasonable to maintain the existing system or whether we should institute a system that uses policies based on the attitudes (...) and beliefs of a minority group that is in greater need than the majority. In light of the discussion, we suggest that the current policies guiding the organ procurement system are not adequate to address existing concerns within the African-American community and that a different set of assumptions may be needed to drive organ procurement policy. (shrink)
This article follows Deleuze in investigating the ways in which the symptom as a form of representation can be collapsed into immanence. Exploring the symptoms of schizophrenia and autism, it examines what implications such a collapse may have for the production of the symptom in its double articulation as representation and immanent production. The argument follows Deleuze and Guattari in asserting that symptoms hold an implicit limit for the social forms that deploy them. Arguing that schizophrenia, as one such limit, (...) has been successfully appropriated and deferred by postmodern capitalism, it is proposed that the proliferating symptom cluster of autism may indicate a new form of limit and that ‘‘becoming autistic’’ thus may have potential as revolutionary practice. (shrink)
The Immanent Word establishes that the philosophical study of language inaugurated in the 1759 works of Hamann and Lessing marks a paradigm shift in modern philosophy; it analyzes the transformation of that shift in works of Herder, Kant, Fichte, Novalis and Schlegel. It contends that recent studies of early linguistic philosophy obscure the most relevant commission of its thinkers, arguing against the theological appropriation of Hamann by John Milbank; against the "expressive" appropriation of Hamann and Herder by Christina Lafont (...) and Charles Taylor; and against Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy’s uncritical championing of Schlegel’s ideological position. (shrink)
A historical example is considered which conflicts with Laudan's Problem Solving Model [1981]. In the period 1840–85 chemists preferred a theory with 3 major conceptual problems (the Liebig Theory of Acids) to Lavoisier's which had only one major conceptual problem (why are the halogen hydrides acids?). The overall conceptual merits of Lavoisier's scheme have been revived in the modern Lux-Flood classification of Acids. Larry Laudan [1977], [1981] proposed a problem solving model of scientific rationality which not only applied to global (...) theories but, if one takes the final paragraph of his [1977] seriously, also applies to sub theories, auxiliary hypotheses and sub auxiliary hypotheses all the way down the line. (shrink)
By exploring the writings of Mandeville, Hume and Smith, this book offers a critique of Hayek's theory of cultural evolution and explores the roots of his powerful defence of liberalism.
Light seems to be a very changeable size in our build environment. Being an immaterial building stone, light takes a very liquid shape in our design-vocabulary. It consists of an invisible material – photons – and therefore it takes no specific form in itself but is only articulated through the meeting with form. Therefore, since form has been the major theme for the aesthetics up until now, giving form to light is a complex and challenging task and reducing it to (...) Lux and measurable numbers only an escape from facing what is actually perceived. In this way light seems to suffer from what can be called the dichotomy between the aesthetics of the objects and the aesthetics of the perception – as stated by Boehme. To improve practice this article conducts a study of our perception, focusing more on the effects of light and less on the physical light (lux). By doing so the article tries to give a better understanding of the differences of the regional lighting cultures and the influences creating the differences. The article tries to establish a link between the regional daylight and the use of artificial lighting, showing that daylight, as a background, along with our perception, are determinant factors for how the artificial lighting and the brightness of the room is perceived. The articlehereby suggests that light is not an absolute factor. This means the end of the dichotomy between daylight and artificial light – often expressed by artificial light replacing daylight – instead this article tries to establish a dialogue between the daylight and the artificial lighting. The article describes how light – this intangible building block – can become a more workable size in the aesthetic and architectural practice of today. . (shrink)
Each case study defines:The dilemma in questionThe context of the organizational/management settingThe conditions that create the dilemmaThe courses of action ...
In his 1615 letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Lorraine, Galileo argues for a “principle of limitation”: the authority of Scripture should not be invoked in scientific matters. In doing so, he claims to be following the example of St Augustine. But Augustine’s position would be better described as a “principle of differing purpose”: although the Scriptures were not written in order to reveal scientific truths, such matters may still be covered by biblical authority. The Roman Catholic Church (...) has rejected Galileo’s principle, opting rather for Augustine’s, leaving open the possibility of future conflicts between scientists and Church authority. (shrink)
In this paper I explicate what it means to see phenomenologically for an able-bodied researcher in the field of disability, and how this seeing yields a non-reductionistic understanding of the phenomenon of disability. My aim is to show how in this context, I, as a human and social scientist can use phenomenological methodology for both collecting and interpreting data. Though phenomenological philosophy can provide the basis of social scientific epistemology, it does not lend itself easily to a single specific or (...) programmatic social scientific methodology. I offer possible ways of using phenomenological theory, methodology and techniques in order to understand the experience of a person with physical disability learning to use a wheelchair. I use data from a clinical encounter between a physical therapist (PT) and an adult with Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) in an inpatient rehabilitation hospital in Midwestern United States in order to flesh out phenomenological seeing. I conclude with implications for qualitative researchers who use phenomenological methods to inform their work. (shrink)
Like Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas holds that the rational soul is the substantial form of the human body. In so doing, he takes himself to be rejecting a Platonic version of substance dualism; his criticisms, however, apply equally to a traditional understanding of Cartesian dualism. Aquinas’s own peculiar brand of dualism is receiving increased attention from contemporary philosophers—especially those attracted to positions that fall between Cartesian substance dualism and reductive materialism. What Aquinas’s own view amounts to, however, is subject to debate. (...) Philosophers (such as J. P. Moreland and Scott Rae) have claimed that ‘Thomistic substance dualism’ (TSD) centers around two beliefs: (1) the rational soul is an immaterial substance, and (2) this immaterial substance is the human person. In this paper, I argue that labeling such an account ‘Thomistic’ proves dangerously misleading—not only does Aquinas himself explicitly deny both of these claims, but he denies them for philosophically significant reasons. Furthermore, I argue that Aquinas’s own position provides an account of human nature both more coherent and philosophically attractive. (shrink)
Introduction: Kantian concepts, liberal theology, and post-Kantian idealism -- Subjectivity in question: Immanuel Kant, Johann G. Fichte, and critical idealism -- Making sense of religion: Friedrich Schleiermacher, John Locke, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and liberal theology -- Dialectics of spirit: F.W.J. Schelling, G.W.F. Hegel, and absolute idealism -- Hegelian spirit in question: David Friedrich Strauss, Søren Kierkegaard, and mediating theology -- Neo-Kantian historicism: Albrecht Ritschl, Adolf von Harnack, Wilhelm Herrmann, Ernst Troeltsch, and the Ritschlian school -- Idealistic ordering: Lux Mundi, Andrew (...) Seth Pringle-Pattison, Hastings Rashdall, Alfred E. Garvie, Alfred North Whitehead, William Temple, and British idealism -- The Barthian revolt: Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, and the legacy of liberal theology -- Idealistic ironies: from Kant and Hegel to Tillich and Barth. (shrink)
Denkpsychologie has been important for the development of psychology as well as of philosophy during the last century. More specifically, cognitive psychology as well as Karl Popper’s evolutionary epistemology were both influenced by Otto Selz’s cognitive psychology. Without doubt, Selz played a role in the development of Popper’s thinking, but Michel ter Hark has not given convincing evidence for Popper’s idea of bold conjectures being influenced by Selz.
Paper presented at the Association for Informal Logic and Critical Thinking meeting in conjunction with the Central Division of the American Philosophical Association, Chicago, April 2004.
Interpreting the Enlightenment: on methods -- A map of the Enlightenment: whither France? -- The spirit of the moderns: from the new science to the Enlightenment -- Society, the subject of the modern story -- Quarrel in the Academy: the ancients strike back -- Humanism and Enlightenment: the classical style of the philosophes -- The philosophical spirit of the laws: politics and antiquity -- An ancient god: pagans and philosophers -- Post tenebras lux: Begriffsgeschichte or regime d'historicité? -- Ancients and (...) the Orient: translatio imperii -- Enlightened institutions (i): the royal academies versus the Republic of Letters -- Enlightened institutions (ii): universities, censorship, and public instruction -- Worldliness, politeness, and the importance of not being too radical -- From Enlightenment to Revolution: a shared history? -- France and the European Enlightenment -- Modern myths. (shrink)
In certain contemporary theories of the politics of shame, shame is considered a pernicious emotion that we need to avoid in, or a salutary emotion that serves as an infallible guide to, democratic deliberation. The author argues that both positions arise out of an inadequate notion of the structure of shame and an oversimplistic opposition between shame and shamelessness. Plato's dialogue, the Gorgias, actually helps to address these problems because it supplies a deeper understanding of the place of shame in (...) democratic politics in ways that address our contemporary dilemmas. It does this first, by avoiding the simple opposition between shame and shamelessness and secondly, by articulating three different kinds of "politics of shame" that can characterize democratic deliberations. Finally, Plato's treatment of shame extends upon contemporary ethical and psychoanalytic notions of shame in ways that are directly relevant to the our contemporary political situation. (shrink)
Do participants bring their own priors to an experiment? If so, do they share the same priors as the researchers who design the experiment? In this article, we examine the extent to which self-generated priors conform to experimenters’ expectations by explicitly asking participants to indicate their own priors in estimating the probability of a variety of events. We find in Study 1 that despite being instructed to follow a uniform distribution, participants appear to have used their own priors, which deviated (...) from the given instructions. Using subjects’ own priors allows us to account better for their responses rather than merely to test the accuracy of their estimates. Implications for the study of judgment and decision making are discussed. (shrink)
This paper analyses various approaches to the concept of a ‘safety culture’ in terms of their epistemological assumptions regarding the nature of learning. As a result of this analysis, the study proposes a relational-interpretive framework for the promotion of safety in health care, which is based on relational theories and the philosophy of conceptual pragmatism as this can be used to integrate the various strands of current safety research. In particular, the approach based on a relational-interpretive perspective can bridge the (...) apparent dualist gap that exists between the rational objectivist perspective and the relativist perspective on the role of learning in developing a safety culture. According to the relational-interpretive perspective of safety management that is proposed here, organizational members need to give continuous attention to the accepted organizational norms and values, which shape the safety culture. A case study from a health care safety project in Sweden is utilized to illustrate the ideas advanced in this paper. (shrink)
This paper examines the Neo-Confucian hermeneutic debates surrounding the interpretation of Zhu Xi's poem ?The Boat Song of Wuyi's Nine Bends? (1185 AD). The question of whether to regard the poem as a poetic description of landscape or as a philosophical lesson in a poetic form led to serious philosophical discussions in China and Korea in the centuries that followed its publication. This paper investigates the philosophical commentaries on the poem produced during the Yuan and Ming dynasties, and the contentious (...) hermeneutic debates it sparked among Chos?n Neo-Confucians which fanned the flames of factional politics. On the whole, this paper aims to reveal the divergent and unsettling interpretive traditions within Neo-Confucianism, and argues that the common division of Neo-Confucian poetry into the categories of philosophical and non-philosophical does not aptly represent the highly nuanced discussion of the subject. (shrink)
The aim of this article is to investigate whether choosing the appropriate referring expression requires taking into account the hearer’s perspective, as is predicted under some versions of bidirectional Optimality Theory but is unexpected under other versions. We did this by comparing the results of 25 young and 25 elderly adults on an elicitation task based on eight different picture stories, and a comprehension task based on eight similar written stories. With respect to the elicitation task, we found that elderly (...) adults produce pronouns significantly more often than young adults when referring to the old topic in the presence of a new topic. With respect to the comprehension task, no significant differences were found between elderly and young adults. These results support the hypothesis that speakers optimize bidirectionally and take into account hearers when selecting a referring expression. If the use of a pronoun will lead to an unintended interpretation by the hearer, the speaker will use an unambiguous definite noun phrase instead. Because elderly adults are more limited in their processing capacities, as is indicated by their smaller working memory capacity, as speakers they will not always be able to reason about the hearer’s choices. As a result, they frequently produce non-recoverable pronouns. (shrink)
This approach does not define a probability measure by syntactical structures. It reveals a link between modal logic and mathematical probability theory. This is shown (1) by adding an operator (and two further connectives and constants) to a system of lower predicate calculus and (2) regarding the models of that extended system. These models are models of the modal system S₅ (without the Barcan formula), where a usual probability measure is defined on their set of possible worlds. Mathematical probability models (...) can be seen as models of S₅. (shrink)
