The merit of this eminently historical book consists in the accurate rendering of possibly all critiques directed at the Science of Logic from its very appearance until Hegel's death in 1831. The subject-choice bears witness to the author's ability to skip the obvious remark--why another book on Hegel's Logic?--pointing out a set of arguments which are, at least in part, of noticeable theoretical interest. The historian of philosophy, while commenting a writing by a philosopher of the past, ought to occupy (...) himself with any of the following four perspectives: immanent interpretation; finding the sources; reconstruction of the immediate incidence; and reconstruction of the contemporary incidence. It is clear that by choosing the third, and without forgetting the first and the fourth perspective, Burkhardt did not undertake an easy task, but surely a task with great rewards. (shrink)

PurposeThe paper aims to explore future and emerging information and communication technologies. It gives a general overview of the social consequences and ethical issues arising from technologies that can currently be reasonably expected. This overview is used to present recommendations and integrate these in a framework of responsible innovation.Design/methodology/approachThe identification of emerging ICTs and their ethical consequences is based on the review and analysis if several different bodies of literature. The individual features of the ICTs and the ethical issues identified (...) this way are then aggregated and analysed.FindingsThe paper outlines the 11 ICTs identified. Some of the shared features that are likely to have social relevance include an increase in natural interaction, the invisibility of technology, direct links between humans and technology, detailed models and data of humans and an increasing autonomy of technology that may lead to power over the user. Ethical issues include several current topics such as privacy, data protection, intellectual property and digital divides. New problems may include changes to the way humans are perceived and the role of humans and technology in society. This includes changing power structures and different ways of treating humans.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper presents a piece of foresight research which cannot claim exact knowledge of the future. However, by developing a detailed understanding of possible futures it provides an important basis for current decisions relating to future technology development and governance.Practical implicationsThe paper spells out a range of recommendations for both policy makers and researchers/industry. These refer to the framework within which technology is developed and how such a framework could be designed to allow the development of ethical reflexivity.Social implicationsThe work described here is likely to influence EU policy on ICT research and technology research and innovation more broadly. This may have implications for the type of technologies funded and broad implications for the social use of emerging technologies.Originality/valueThe paper presents a novel and important broad view of the future of ICTs that is required in order to inform current policy decisions. (shrink)

In lowland South America, breath animates human and non-human bodies, pulsating through the materialities of organisms. Humans, however, should manage their bodies to recast and reconfigure breath in its most life-enhancing manifestations: singing and smoking. These are the specialized domains of those able to manage their vitalities in such a way as to produce potent effects in themselves and in the world around them, including influencing atmospheric conditions, the lives of animals and plants and the harming and healing of others. (...) In these relational onto-epistemologies, intersubjectivity, intercorporality and states of non-cognitive interaffection find new depths. Breath, properly managed, can make and unmake worldly forms, including bodies and the societies they come together in. Focusing on two Amerindian communities, the Warekena of northwestern Rio Negro, Brazil and the Shipibo-Konibo of the Ucayali valley in Eastern Peru, this article examines the interface between human and non-human subjectivities, and how resonant interaffective atmospheric conditions are induced to promote health. (shrink)

Advances in neuroscience and other disciplines are producing large-scale brain data consisting of datasets from multiple organisms, disciplines, and jurisdictions in different formats. However, due to the lack of an international data governance framework brain data is currently being produced under various contextual ethical and legal principles which may influence key stakeholders involved in the generation, collection, processing and sharing of brain data thereby raising ethical and legal challenges. In addition, despite the demand for a brain data governance framework that (...) accounts for culture, there is a gap in empirical research and actions to understand how key stakeholders around the world view these issues using neuroscientists who are affected by these ethical and legal principles. Therefore, using the research question how do ethical and legal principles influence data governance in neuroscience? we attempt to understand the perceptions of key actors on the principles, issues and concerns that can arise from brain data research. We carried out interviews with 21 leading international neuroscientists. The analytical insights revealed key ethical and legal principles, areas of convergence, visibility, and the contextual issues and concerns that arise in brain data research around these principles. These issues and concerns circulate around intimately connected areas which include ethics, human rights, regulations, policies and guidelines, and participatory governance. Also, key contextual insights around animal research and ethics were identified. The research identifies key principles, issues, and concerns that need to be addressed in advancing the development of a framework for global brain data governance. By presenting contextual insights from neuroscientists across regions, the study contributes to informing discussions and shaping policies aimed at promoting responsible and ethical practices in brain data research. The research answers the call for a cross cultural study of global brain data governance and the results of the study will assist in understanding the issues and concerns that arise in brain data governance. (shrink)

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the emancipatory promises and realities of information and communication technology in Egypt.Design/methodology/approachThe combination of Habermasian and Foucauldian ideas implemented by a critical discourse analysis of the Egyptian Information Society Policy and interviews with employees of local decision support systems employees. Promises and rhetoric are contrasted with findings and questioned with regards to their validity.FindingsOn the policy level, analysis shows that the emancipating rhetoric of ICT is not followed through. ICT is mostly seen (...) as a means of attracting foreign direct investment. Neither political participation nor educational benefits are promoted seriously. On the local level, culture and organisational realities prevent individuals from exploiting the emancipatory potential of the technology.Originality/valueThe combination of the Habermasian and Foucauldian approach exposes the problems of ICT use in developing countries. It shows that emancipation is used to legitimise ICT policies but is not taken seriously on a policy level in Egypt. Local implementations also fail to deliver on their promise. In order to have emancipatory effects, ICT policy and use will need to be reconsidered. (shrink)

Er arbeitete für eine Erneuerung des Judentums auf der Grundlage der deutschen Sprache. Doch das Land, das ihm Heimat war, verjagte ihn. Nach Auschwitz sah er die Beziehung des Judentums mit Deutschland zerstört, und ist doch offen für ein neues Gespräch. Was hat es mit Martin Buber und den Deutschen auf sich? War er der vom "geistigen Deutschland anerkannter deutsche Jude" oder nur der "Jude für die Deutschen nach Auschwitz"? Dieser Essay begibt sich auf eine spannende Spurensuche. Er bringt das (...) facettenreiche Bild einer ebenso spannungsvollen wie fruchtbaren Beziehung zu Tage. (shrink)

The ethics of artificial intelligence is a widely discussed topic. There are numerous initiatives that aim to develop the principles and guidance to ensure that the development, deployment and use of AI are ethically acceptable. What is generally unclear is how organisations that make use of AI understand and address these ethical issues in practice. While there is an abundance of conceptual work on AI ethics, empirical insights are rare and often anecdotal. This paper fills the gap in our current (...) understanding of how organisations deal with AI ethics by presenting empirical findings collected using a set of ten case studies and providing an account of the cross-case analysis. The paper reviews the discussion of ethical issues of AI as well as mitigation strategies that have been proposed in the literature. Using this background, the cross-case analysis categorises the organisational responses that were observed in practice. The discussion shows that organisations are highly aware of the AI ethics debate and keen to engage with ethical issues proactively. However, they make use of only a relatively small subsection of the mitigation strategies proposed in the literature. These insights are of importance to organisations deploying or using AI, to the academic AI ethics debate, but maybe most valuable to policymakers involved in the current debate about suitable policy developments to address the ethical issues raised by AI. (shrink)

Das Buch versammelt grundlegende Studien zu Edith Stein und ihren Lektüren von Homer, mittelalterlicher Literatur, Lessing, Schleiermacher, Hauptmann und dem Expressionismus. Es geht den Lektüreeinflüssen in Tradition, Spiritualität und Begegnungen nach und untersucht dazu aktuelle Fragen um Glaube, Wissen und eine neue Phänomenologie. Ein literarisch intensiver und aus der rekonstruierten Bibliothek quellenerschlossener Bildungsgang wirkte auf die Frömmigkeitsentwicklung der späteren Karmelitin und befruchtete massgeblich ihre Denkwelt und mystisch eigene Position.

There has been much debate whether computers can be responsible. This question is usually discussed in terms of personhood and personal characteristics, which a computer may or may not possess. If a computer fulfils the conditions required for agency or personhood, then it can be responsible; otherwise not. This paper suggests a different approach. An analysis of the concept of responsibility shows that it is a social construct of ascription which is only viable in certain social contexts and which serves (...) particular social aims. If this is the main aspect of responsibility then the question whether computers can be responsible no longer hinges on the difficult problem of agency but on the possibly simpler question whether responsibility ascriptions to computers can fulfil social goals. The suggested solution to the question whether computers can be subjects of responsibility is the introduction of a new concept, called “quasi-responsibility” which will emphasise the social aim of responsibility ascription and which can be applied to computers. (shrink)

Taking account of Kant's unpublished mss., the author presents a close textual interpretation of Kant's logic of concepts.

Der aktuelle Diskurs um Diagramme wird nicht zuletzt durch den rasanten konjunkturellen Aufschwung von Schaubildern in der Kunst geprägt. Dieses Buch stellt die Frage nach den historischen Voraussetzungen, die hinter dem großen Interesse an diagrammatischen Formen des Visualisierens und Argumentierens stehen. In facettenreichen Fallstudien und theoretischen Analysen wird das diagrammatische Potenzial für die bildgeleitete Erkenntnis aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven untersucht. Der Band lotet damit nicht zuletzt auch die Zukunftsträchtigkeit der Diagrammatologie als eigenständiges bildwissenschaftliches Forschungsfeld aus.

The two main challenges of the theory of conceptual content presented by Robert Brandom in Making It Explicit are to account for a referential dimension of conceptual content and to account for the objectivity of conceptual norms. Brandom tries to meet both these challenges in chapter 8 of his book. I argue that the accounts presented there can only be understood if seen against the background of Brandom's theory of communication developed in chapter 7. This theory is motivated by the (...) well-known problem that semantic holism threatens the possibility of communication because it has the consequence that words mean different things in different mouths. Brandom offers a solution to this problem in terms of what he calls recurrence commitments. I show that chapter 8 of Making It Explicit should be understood as arguing that a practice that includes acknowledging interpersonal recurrence commitments institutes both conceptual contents with a referential dimension and objective conceptual norms. I close by raising the objection that Brandom's argument can only show that conceptual norms are communally shared and not that they are objective. I propose an emendation of this argument, having recourse to a practice Brandom refers to as rational rectification in his new book Between Saying and Doing. (shrink)

This study investigates the ethical use of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies (BD + AI)—using an empirical approach. The paper categorises the current literature and presents a multi-case study of 'on-the-ground' ethical issues that uses qualitative tools to analyse findings from ten targeted case-studies from a range of domains. The analysis coalesces identified singular ethical issues, (from the literature), into clusters to offer a comparison with the proposed classification in the literature. The results show that despite the variety (...) of different social domains, fields, and applications of AI, there is overlap and correlation between the organisations’ ethical concerns. This more detailed understanding of ethics in AI + BD is required to ensure that the multitude of suggested ways of addressing them can be targeted and succeed in mitigating the pertinent ethical issues that are often discussed in the literature. (shrink)

The increasing use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to help facilitate neuroscience adds a new level of complexity to the question of how ethical issues of such research can be identified and addressed. Current research ethics practice, based on ethics reviews by institutional review boards (IRB) and underpinned by ethical principalism, has been widely criticised and even called ‘imperialist’. In this paper, we develop an alternative way of approaching ethics in neuro-ICT research, based on discourse ethics, which implements responsible (...) research and innovation through dialogues. We draw on our work in Ethics Support, using the Human Brain Project as empirical evidence of the viability of this approach. (shrink)

The contributors to _Constructing the Pluriverse_ critique the hegemony of the postcolonial Western tradition and its claims to universality by offering a set of “pluriversal” approaches to understanding the coexisting epistemologies and practices of the different worlds and problems we inhabit and encounter. Moving beyond critiques of colonialism, the contributors rethink the relationship between knowledge and power, offering new perspectives on development, democracy, and ideology while providing diverse methodologies for non-Western thought and practice that range from feminist approaches to scientific (...) research to ways of knowing expressed through West African oral traditions. In combination, these wide-ranging approaches and understandings form a new analytical toolbox for those seeking creative solutions for dismantling Westernization throughout the world. Contributors Zaid Ahmad, Manuela Boatcă, Hans-Jürgen Burchardt, Arturo Escobar, Sandra Harding, Ehsan Kashfi, Venu Mehta, Walter D. Mignolo, Ulrich Oslender, Isiaka Ouattara, Manu Samnotra, Aram Ziai. (shrink)

Information security can be of high moral value. It can equally be used for immoral purposes and have undesirable consequences. In this paper we suggest that critical theory can facilitate a better understanding of possible ethical issues and can provide support when finding ways of addressing them. The paper argues that critical theory has intrinsic links to ethics and that it is possible to identify concepts frequently used in critical theory to pinpoint ethical concerns. Using the example of UK electronic (...) medical records the paper demonstrates that a critical lens can highlight issues that traditional ethical theories tend to overlook. These are often linked to collective issues such as social and organisational structures, which philosophical ethics with its typical focus on the individual does not tend to emphasise. The paper suggests that this insight can help in developing ways of researching and innovating responsibly in the area of information security. (shrink)

Ethical issues of information and communication technologies (ICTs) are important because they can have significant effects on human liberty, happiness, and people’s ability to lead a good life. They are also of functional interest because they can determine whether technologies are used and whether their positive potential can unfold. For these reasons, policy makers are interested in finding out what these issues are and how they can be addressed. The best way of creating ICT policy that is sensitive to ethical (...) issues pertain to being proactive in addressing such issues at an early stage of the technology life cycle. The present paper uses this position as a starting point and discusses how knowledge of ethical aspects of emerging ICTs can be gained. It develops a methodology that goes beyond established futures methodologies to cater for the difficult nature of ethical issues. The authors outline how the description of emerging ICTs can be used for an ethical analysis. (shrink)

This paper seeks to contextualize Lycurgus' use of the historical example of King Codrus' self-sacrifice within Athenian social memory and public discourse. In doing so, it offers a solution to the puzzle of Lycurgus' calling Codrus one of the ἐπώνυμοι τῆς χώρας . I make the case that Codrus was one of the forty-two eponymous age-set heroes who played an important role in the Athenian military and socio-political system. I contend that devotion to the city's gods and heroes and knowledge (...) of their mythology were essential parts of the religious and ideological instruction of Athenian ephebes. Consequently, Lycurgus' citation of the Ephebic Oath, the self-sacrifices of King Codrus and the daughters of Erechtheus, as well as his repeated invocation of the city's gods and shrines, must be seen as integral elements of his indictment of Leocrates for cowardice and treason, behavior that is diametrically opposed to the hoplite ethos and religious devotion that were instilled into young ephebes. Lycurgus thus brings the jurors' memories of their own ephebate into the courtroom and taps into emotions and values that lie at the heart of Athenian collective identity. (shrink)

Trichoplax adhaerens is more simply organized than any other living metazoan. This tiny marine animal looks like a irregular “hairy plate” (“tricho plax”) with a simple upper and lower epithelium and some loose cells in between. After its original description by F.E. Schulze 1883, it attracted particular attention as a potential candidate representing the basic and ancestral state of metazoan organization. The lack of any kind of symmetry, organs, nerve cells, muscle cells, basal lamina and extracellular matrix originally left little (...) doubt about the basal position of T. adhaerens. Nevertheless, the interest of zoologists and evolutionary biologists suddenly vanished for more than half a century when Trichoplax was claimed to be an aberrant hydrozoan planula larva. Recently, Trichoplax has been rediscovered as a key species for unraveling early metazoan evolution. For example, research on regulatory genes and whole genome sequencing promise insights into the genetics underlying the origin and development of basal metazoan phyla. Trichoplax offers unique potential for understanding the minimal requirements of metazoan animal organization. BioEssays 27:1294–1302, 2005. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

In modern technical societies computers interact with human beings in ways that can affect moral rights and obligations. This has given rise to the question whether computers can act as autonomous moral agents. The answer to this question depends on many explicit and implicit definitions that touch on different philosophical areas such as anthropology and metaphysics. The approach chosen in this paper centres on the concept of information. Information is a multi-facetted notion which is hard to define comprehensively. However, the (...) frequently used definition of information as data endowed with meaning can promote our understanding. It is argued that information in this sense is a necessary condition of cognitivist ethics. This is the basis for analysing computers and information processors regarding their status as possible moral agents. Computers have several characteristics that are desirable for moral agents. However, computers in their current form are unable to capture the meaning of information and therefore fail to reflect morality in anything but a most basic sense of the term. This shortcoming is discussed using the example of the Moral Turing Test. The paper ends with a consideration of which conditions computers would have to fulfil in order to be able to use information in such a way as to render them capable of acting morally and reflecting ethically. (shrink)

This volume describes features of biological autonomy and integrates them into the recent discussion of factors in evolution. In recent years ideas about major transitions in evolution are undergoing a revolutionary change. They include questions about the origin of evolutionary innovation, their genetic and epigenetic background, the role of the phenotype, and of changes in ontogenetic pathways. In the present book, it is argued that it is likewise necessary to question the properties of these innovations and what was qualitatively generated (...) during the macroevolutionary transitions. The author states that a recurring central aspect of macroevolutionary innovations is an increase in individual organismal autonomy whereby it is emancipated from the environment with changes in its capacity for flexibility, self-regulation and self-control of behavior. The first chapters define the concept of autonomy and examine its history and its epistemological context. Later chapters demonstrate how changes in autonomy took place during the major evolutionary transitions and investigate the generation of organs and physiological systems. They synthesize material from various disciplines including zoology, comparative physiology, morphology, molecular biology, neurobiology and ethology. It is argued that the concept is also relevant for understanding the relation of the biological evolution of man to his cultural abilities. Finally the relation of autonomy to adaptation, niche construction, phenotypic plasticity and other factors and patterns in evolution is discussed. The text has a clear perspective from the context of systems biology, arguing that the generation of biological autonomy must be interpreted within an integrative systems approach. (shrink)