In this article, I argue for historical epistemology as a methodology for critical disability studies by examining Foucault’s archaeology of cure in History of Madness. Although the moral, medical, and social models of disability frame disability history as an advancement upon moral and medical authority and a replacement of it by sociopolitical knowledge, I argue that the more comprehensive frame in which these models circulate—the “models framework”—requires the more nuanced approach that historical epistemology offers. In particular, the models framework requires (...) greater use of epistemology as an analytical tool for understanding the historical construction of disability. Thus, I turn to Foucault’s History of Madness in order to both excavate one particular archaeological strand in the text—the archaeology of cure—and to demonstrate how this narrative disrupts some of the key assumptions of the models framework, challenging DS to consider the epistemological force of non-medical fields of knowledge for framing disability and procedures for its cure and elimination. I conclude by arguing that DS must develop historical epistemological methodologies that are sensitive to the complex overlays of moral, medical, and social knowledge, as well as attend to the social construction of scientific and biomedical knowledge itself. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has raised challenges in dealing with information sharing by the public and the authorities. There are two categories of information sharing on social media that are believed to be potentially problematic and unethical: the sharing of personal information of patients and the sharing of fake news or false information. We present a discussion on how the response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia can be ethically handled in terms of information sharing. It is recommended that the public (...) should cultivate the basic skills to evaluate information and determine its validity. On the other hand, the authorities should refrain from placing the blame on patients to avoid them from being stigmatized. It is crucial that all parties are aware of their ethical duty to ensure only ethical and valid information gets shared on social media. (shrink)

As a contribution to the burgeoning field of health humanities, this paper seeks to explore the power of dance to mitigate human suffering and reacquaint us with what it means to be human through bringing the embodied practice of dance into dialogue with the work of the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Merleau-Ponty’s conceptualisation of subjectivity as embodied and of intersubjectivity as intercorporeality frees us from many of the constraints of Cartesian thinking and opens up a new way of thinking about (...) how dance functions as a healing art through its ability to ground and reconnect us with self, world, and others--with our humanity. It is argued that through a Merleau-Pontian framework, we can come to appreciate the true potential of dance as a positive and deeply humanising experience, demonstrating how expressive arts practice understood through the lens of philosophical theory can open up new dimensions of understanding and experience in relation to well-being and self- care. (shrink)

The embodied creative practice of dance facilitates a particular kind of awareness or attunement which can inform both the therapeutic and the intellectual work of the Health Humanities. This paper therefore considers dance as a way of ‘doing’ Health Humanities in two interlinked ways: dance as a way of healing and dance as a way of knowing. In bringing together carnal and the creative dimensions of human experience, dance offers us a way of making sense of our place in the (...) world that provides us both with much needed existential security and much needed epistemological freedom. (shrink)

Since 2005, Malaysia has established several biobanks to keep in line with the advancement of biomedical research and development of biobanks in other countries such as the UK and the USA. Despite the establishment of several biobanks in Malaysia, little is known about the informed consent approach in biobanking research and its ethical challenges. This study aims to identify the approach in obtaining informed consent in the Malaysian biobanking for research and explore its ethical challenges. Using non-probability purposive sampling, an (...) in-depth interview with the key informants was conducted in Klang Valley. Based on the interviews, broad consent is the main approach used in obtaining informed consent in biobanking for research in Malaysia and five major ethical challenges were identified. These challenges include the informants’ opinion on the current informed consent approach, understanding participants’ rights, the role of the research ethics committee, biobanking governance in Malaysia, and informants’ knowledge and awareness. In summary, there is a lack of understanding among those involved in biobanking on the ethical, legal, and social aspects of biobanking for research in Malaysia. (shrink)

The chapter highlights four themes within the psychology of climate change that illustrate how psychological findings bear on the philosophy of climate change. The chapter first considers how psychological research has explored the ways in which individuals think about the ethics of the relationship between humans and the environment, developing new constructs capturing various ways of thinking about that relationship and developing tools with which to measure the extent to which participants think about the relationship in the relevant ways. The (...) remaining sections look at why people might find it difficult to act ethically in relation to the environment, the psychological impacts of the climate crisis, and at what psychology can teach us about developing effective interventions to practically respond to the climate crisis. (shrink)

Sports studies is currently dominated by the intellectualist approach to understanding skill and expertise, meaning that questions about the phenomenological nature of skilled performance in sport have generally been overshadowed by the emphasis on the cognitive. By contrast, this article responds to calls for a phenomenology of sporting embodiment by opening up a philosophical exploration of the nature of athletic being-in-the-world. In particular, the paper explores the conceptualisation of immanence and transcendence in relation to the embodied practice of dance, engaging (...) with Merleau-Ponty’s important insight that the body can be a source of transcendence. I also draw on data from in-depth qualitative interviews with professional contemporary dancers to explore dancers’ concepts of ‘being in your body’ and ‘being in the moment’, and to suggest that during the actual embodied practice of dance, dancers do not experience transcendence and immanence as they are conceptualised in philosophy. Rather, I argue, dancers experience a third mode of being that is somehow in-between these two binary terms. I have called this ‘inhabited transcendence’. (shrink)

As with many other countries, Malaysia is also developing and promoting biomedical research to increase the understanding of human diseases and possible interventions. To facilitate this development, there is a significant growth of biobanks in the country to ensure continuous collection of biological samples for future research, which contain extremely important personal information and health data of the participants involved. Given the vast amount of samples and data accumulated by biobanks, they can be considered as reservoirs of precious biomedical big (...) data. It is therefore imperative for biobanks to have in place regulatory measures to ensure ethical use of the biomedical big data. Malaysia has yet to introduce specific legislation for the field of biobanking. However, it can be argued that its existing Personal Data Protection Act 2010 has laid down legal principles that can be enforced to protect biomedical big data generated by the biobanks. Consent is a mechanism to enable data subjects to exercise their autonomy by determining how their data can be used and ensure compliance with legal principles. However, there are two main concerns surrounding the current practice of consent in biomedical big data in Malaysia. First, it is uncertain that the current practice would be able to respect the underlying notion of autonomy, and second, it is not in accordance with the legal principles of the PDPA. Scholars have deliberated on different strategies of informed consent, and a more interactive approach has recently been introduced: dynamic consent. It is argued that a dynamic consent approach would be able to address these concerns. (shrink)

The use of pig derivatives in medicine is forbidden in Islamic law texts, despite the fact that certain applications offer medical advantages. Pigs can be one of the best human organ hosts; therefore, using human–pig chimeras may generate beneficial impact in organ transplantation, particularly in xenotransplantation. In Islam, medical emergencies may allow some pig-based treatments and medical procedures to be employed therapeutically. However, depending on the sort of medical use, emergency situation might differ. Using Islamic legal maxim as bioethical framework, (...) the purpose of this study is to examine the use of pigs for the purpose of human–pig chimeric transplant from the perspective of Islamic bioethics. According to the findings, chimeric organ transplantation using pigs should only be done in emergency situations. (shrink)

The relationship between mathematical formalism, physical interpretation and epistemological appraisal in the practice of physical theorizing is considered in the context of Bohmian mechanics. After laying outthe formal mathematical postulates of thetheory and recovering the historical roots ofthe present debate over the meaning of Bohmianmechanics from the early debate over themeaning of Schrödinger's wave mechanics,several contemporary interpretations of Bohmianmechanics in the literature are discussed andcritiqued with respect to the aim of causalexplanation and an alternative interpretationis proposed. Throughout, the over-arching aimis (...) to exhibit the connections betweenmathematical, ontological and methodologicalquestions in physical theory and to reflect onthe rationality of physical theorizing in lightof the present case. (shrink)