In recent decades, care has played an increasingly crucial role in the self-understanding of the human being in the West. Nevertheless, there is a great deal of confusion and uncertainty surrounding the notion of care. One of the focal points of critics is the normativity of care. To what extent does care have an obligatory character? Only when the objective normative basis of care is sufficiently clarified, care practices can be evaluated and optimised from an ethical perspective. In this contribution (...) we explain how the anthropology of personalism could bring us closer to the normative core of care. The paper starts with a general overview of the contribution of care ethics in healthcare and the problems in relation to the normativity of care. Thereafter, we set the viewpoints of the Louvain tradition of personalism apart en show that this view on the human person is in keeping with a few basic principles of care ethics. Next, we describe how a personalist approach to care ethics can indeed indicate in which direction action must be taken so that human action may be considered ethically sound. (shrink)

De zorgverlening is een sector van de samenleving die vandaag de dag in toenemende mate van karakter lijkt te veranderen. Zo is regionalisering een bestuursfilosofie van de overheid die ertoe leidt dat zorg wordt verleend door seculiere, regionale organisaties in plaats van landelijke organisaties met een levensbeschouwelijke signatuur. Of denk aan de verzakelijking in de thuiszorg, die ertoe leidt dat zorg wordt verleend als losse, inkoopbare pakketjes door diverse zorgaanbieders in plaats van integrale hulp die uitdrukking geeft aan (...) de sociale verantwoordelijkheid van een maatschappelijk georganiseerde groep mensen. Was een levensbeschouwelijk geïnspireerde moraal voor veel van de zorgverlening vanouds een belangrijk organisatieprincipe, nu lijkt er in de liberale samenleving te moeten worden uitgegaan van algemene, levensbeschouwelijk en moreel neutrale principes. (shrink)

Beginning with a dialogue written in the Mencius (late 4th c. B.C.), this article traces an old discussion in Chinese philosophy concerning the question of whom one shouldtake care of. Confucius (551-479 B.C.) values the capacity for empathy or 'likening to oneself'. He thereby promotes, without explicitly arguing for it, a revaluation and extension of the traditional attitude of gradual concern, starting from close relatives and radiating outward. The first opposition to this attitude comes from the Mohists (5-4th c. B.C.), (...) who promote 'concern for everybody', with stringent argumentation by analogy. Mencius, finally, reluctantly enters the discussion to defend the Confucian attitude. Although the Confucian and Mohist attitudes may seem to resemble Western discussions between ethical universalism and particularism, both opponents take spontaneous emotions as their starting-point and both argue by reasoning in the form of presenting analogies. While Mencius relies mainly on the emotions being conducted by a convincing analogy, the Mohists give primacy to the structure of infallible analogical reasoning, forcingthe emotions towards morality. (shrink)

Since the creation of the Belgian state in 1830, the kings, head of state, always tried to expand their political influence. Part of this strategy was the treatment of the ministers as individuals, not as a council. The process of democratisation and the development of political parties pushed back this royal influence. In the meantime, as a result of the fact that coalitions were necessary to establish a government, the Council of Ministers was developping more and more as an institution. (...) That was necessary to gain some governmental stability. Thispermanent Council was not stated in the constitution of 1830. King Leopold III did the same during the thirties as his predecessors and tried to block this evolution. The Second World War established the circumstances to expand his power. The Council ofM inisters choosed for the western democracies. Leopold III did not. Nevertheless the dynasty was not treathened but Leopold, who was not able to adapt, had to forsake the throne. After the war, the Council of Ministers was acknowledged as one of the most important institutions of the Belgian political system. (shrink)

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Dit artikel neemt de secularisatietheorie van H. van Riessen als leidraad. Het begint met het onderscheid tussen secularisatie als emancipatie en als secularisme uit te werken. Vervolgens toont het de actualiteit van deze theorie door op het punt van het onderscheid tussen emancipatie en secularisme overeenkomsten met hedendaagse denkers aan te wijzen . Via een verbinding tussen emancipatie en modernisering wordt daarna Taylors positie vergeleken met radicalere visies op deze verhouding binnen de traditie van de Vrije Universiteit. (...) In het slotgedeelte staat secularisatie als secularisme centraal. Dit onderdeel begint met een analyse van het leerstuk van de ‘werkzame schijn’. Afgesloten wordt met een eigen visie op secularisme als religie. Een ongetoetste vooronderstelling van veel Reformatorische wijsbegeerte is dat religie altijd in geconcentreerde vorm optreedt. Aan de hand van het voorbeeld van multipele religieuze participatie in China maakt dit artikel aannemelijk dat secularisme ook in diffuse vormen kan optreden. (shrink)

Emancipatie is goed, identiteitspolitiek is fout, zo luidt de strekking van het recente boek van politiek filosoof Gijs van Oenen, getiteld Culturele veldslagen: Filosofie van de culture wars. Kritiek op identiteitspolitiek - vooral die in de woke vorm – is vandaag de dag niks bijzonders. Ook de analyse van Van Oenen dat er net zo goed een identiteitspolitiek van rechts als van links bestaat is niet nieuw, evenmin als zijn ‘oplossing’ namelijk liberalisme en de rechtsstaat – beide treffen we (...) bijvoorbeeld aan bij Anthony Appiah’s The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity (2019). Nieuw is wel dat Van Oenen - die zich als links intellectueel afficheert – hierbij etiketten gebruikt die momenteel gangbaar zijn in de hoek van alt right. De termen ‘cultuurmarxisme’ en ‘culture wars’ - zie de titel van zijn boek - worden door hem als neutraal gepresenteerd, maar het is de vraag wat hij daarmee binnen haalt. (shrink)

d. 1. Secularisering -- d. 2. Humanisering en emancipatie.

ABSTRACT Recent developments in generating gametes via in vitro gametogenesis (IVG) from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and their successful use for reproductive purposes in animals strongly suggest that soon these methods could also be used in human reproduction. At least two questions emerge in this context: (a) if a legislator should permit their use and (b) if ethical claims emerge that support their provision, e.g., by public health care systems. This urges an ethical reflection of the new reproductive options (...) this technique might offer. Since the concept of reproductive freedom is a key aspect for the ethical evaluation of artificial reproductive technologies (ARTs), it is necessary to analyze if the new possibilities emerging from IVG fall within the scope of this concept. The results may constitute a morally relevant difference between different imaginable applications of IVG and potentially justify differences in claims to access this technology. (shrink)

In zijn werk uit de jaren voor zijn dood in 1984 verruilt Foucault de nadruk op de ‘macht’ voor een onderzoek naar de ‘zorg voor zichzelf’. Dit artikel geeft een overzicht en interpretatie van dit late werk van Foucault. Bovendien wordt de actuele betekenis ervan geïllustreerd door het in te zetten voor een analyse van maatschappelijke problemen rond nieuwe technologieën. Juist de wending in Foucaults late werk maakt dat zijn benadering blijvende waarde krijgt voor de analyse van actuele problemen, (...) omdat hij meer dan ooit tevoren op positieve wijze zijn eigen gedachten uitwerkt. De ontmanteling van ‘het subject’ uit zijn eerdere werk wordt nu aangevuld met aanknopingspunten om te onderzoeken hoe in onze eigen tijd nieuwe vormen van subjectiviteit worden voortgebracht. (shrink)

The issue of violent extremism has given rise to new policy debates in Norway. A key limitation of these debates, often grounded in naïve assumptions about the peacebuilding effect of education, is the downplay of emotions and dissent in democratic engagement. This article analyses how selected educators in Norway describe encountering and engaging with extremist students for educational interventional purposes. Previous research suggests that educational efforts to counter violent extremism can be exclusionary from the perspective of target audiences. In contrast, (...) this study draws on agonistic pluralism to provide an alternative to understand educational approaches that may help students disengage from violent extremism. The findings show that the selected educators argue the importance of trust, support and tolerance when engaging with extremist students. For these professionals, education should not downplay radical or extreme emotions but rather place them at the centre of educational engagement. Furthermore, it is suggested that educators’ empathic engagement may open the path for young people to disengage from violent extremism. (shrink)

Modern cosmology has two competing theories of the origin of the universe: the "Singularity theory" and the "Superstring theory". Four Dilemmas of the "Super-string theory" are presented: the incompleteness of the eleven space–time dimensions,the inextricable dependence on the “Space–Time Background”, the "Zero-Brane the-ory" admitting stuff smaller than the Planck scale, and the pure mathematical theory that cannot be falsified by experiments. Although the "Singularity theory" is faced with many critiques from the "Superstring theory", from the perspective of Informa-tion Ontology, treating (...) the "Singularity" as "Origin Information" can dissolve these troubles well. For the "Singularity theory", the new philosophical thinking frame-work effectively explains the parameter problems of the universe, and gives satisfied response to the challenges from the "Superstring theory". As a result, the "Singularity theory" has a more competitive advantage on the origin of the universe. (shrink)

A smooth rotated hyperbola model for support vector machine (SVM) is proposed. The method is based on the approximation property of the hyperbola to its asymptotic lines. The rotated hyperbola model has the least error on approximating the plus function when the angle between the two asymptotic lines is 135 degree. Experimental result shows that compared with other smooth methods, the rotated hyperbola function support vector machine (RHSSVM) reduces the compute time and can efficiently handle large scale and high dimensional (...) programs. (shrink)

From the origin of ancient Greek philosophy to the philosophy of medieval ages, although it appeared the discussion of "nominalism" and "realism" in medieval times, the exploration of the concept of "objective but non-real" did not get further developed. From the view of the inherent integration of the unity of general rationality on science and philosophy, professor Wu Kun revived the concept of "objective but non-reality" and creatively developed his "philosophy of information" system. Because the existence of "objective but non-reality" (...) is inherently a kind of "crossover" field in the traditional philosophy, it certainty solve the problems of traditional philosophy from the ontology, which will lead to the breakthrough in the fundamental paradigm in philosophy, and the philosophy begin its fundamental turn. (shrink)

This article puts forward a novel class of Bézier smooth semi-supervised support vector machines(BS4VMs) for classification. As is well known, semi-supervised support vector machine is introduced for dealing with quantities of unlabeled data in the real world. Labeled data is utilized to train the algorithm and then adapting it to classify the unlabeled data. However, the objective semi-supervised function is not differentiable globally. It is required to endure heavy burden in solving two quadratic programming problems with inversion matrix operation. To (...) solve this problem, the interpolation Bézier functions for replacing the non-smooth term have been investigated. Firstly, the development of the novel BS4VMs classifier is introduced. Then, the non-linear model and convergence analysis are presented. To show how the BS4VMs can be practically implemented, experiments on synthetic and real data sets are offered. The theoretical analysis and experiments comparisons clearly illustrate the BS4VMs are superior to the proposed methods in both cross-validation classification accuracy and calculating time. (shrink)

This article puts forward a novel smooth rotated hyperbola model for support vector machine (RHSSVM) for classification. As is well known, the Support vector machine (SVM) is based on Statistical Learning Theory and performs its high precision on data classification. However, the objective function is non-differentiable at the zero point. Therefore the fast algorithms cannot be used to train and test the SVM. To deal with it, the proposed method is based on the approximation property of the hyperbola to its (...) asymptotic lines. Firstly, we describe the development of RHSSVM from the basic linear SVM optimization programming. Then we extend the linear model to non-linear model. We prove the solution of RHSSVM is convergent, unique, and global optimal. We show how RHSSVM can be practically implemented. At last, the theoretical analysis illustrates that compared with other three typical models, the rotated hyperbola model has the least error on approximating the plus function. Meanwhile, computer simulations show that the RHSSVM can reduce the consuming time at most 54.6% and can efficiently handle large scale and high dimensional programming. -/- . (shrink)

From the origin of ancient Greek philosophy to the philosophy of medieval ages, although it appeared the discussion of "nominalism" and "realism" in medieval times, the exploration of the concept of "objective but non-real" did not get further developed. From the view of the inherent integration of the unity of general rationality on science and philosophy, professor Wu Kun revived the concept of "objective but non-reality" and creatively developed his "philosophy of information" system. Because the existence of "objective but non-reality" (...) is inherently a kind of "crossover" field in the traditional philosophy, it certainty solve the problems of traditional philosophy from the ontology, which will lead to the breakthrough in the fundamental paradigm in philosophy, and the philosophy begin its fundamental turn. (shrink)

The spatialization mechanism of time is one of the important ways to explore the essence of time. The theory of cognitive linguistics holds that metaphor and metonymy are two ways of spatialization of time concept. However, from the perspective of Information Philosophy, the above research only stays at the level of regenerative temporal and spatial information(concept), and does not trace back to the source of objective ontology to explain the spatialization process of time. According to the ontology theory of Information (...) Philosophy, information can be divided into three different forms and the concept is just the third form of information. Thus, we can analyze the spatialization process of time under the objective time and space, in-itself, for-self and regenerative space-time information form, revealing the inevitability spatialization of human temporal cognitive. This informational perspective shows the ontological source of the human’s perception of "past, present and future" and deepens the study of the essence of time. (shrink)

We investigate a hitherto under-considered avenue of response for the logical pluralist to collapse worries. In particular, we note that standard forms of the collapse arguments seem to require significant order-theoretic assumptions, namely that the collection of admissible logics for the pluralist should be closed under meets and joins. We consider some reasons for rejecting this assumption, noting some prima facie plausible constraints on the class of admissible logics which would lead a pluralist admitting those logics to resist such closure (...) conditions. (shrink)

Parues pour la premiere fois en 1938, les Etudes kierkegaardiennes de Jean Wahl constitutent a tous egards une somme incontournable pour comprendre le sens de la philosophie de Kierkegaard et la place si originale qu'elle occupe dans l'histoire de la philosophie. L'auteur s'efforce d'y faire apparaitre le lien existant entre les evenements qui marquerent la vie de Kierkegaard et la formation de ses concepts fondamentaux. Par ce biais, l'auteur montre comment la theorie des trois stades de l'existence fait appel a (...) une dialectique qualitative, opposee a la dialectique hegelienne. L'auteur montre enfin que la theorie des trois stades de la croyance et de l'existence qui lui sont liees sont inseparables d'une lutte entreprise contre les pensees qui contribuerent a la genese de la pensee de Kierkegaard et qu'il s'agit a present pour lui de depasser: il n'y a pas de chemin qui conduit de la pensee, du cogito, a l'etre, au sum, car l'existence est l'etre hors de toute pensee. (shrink)