All over Europe, the provision of healthcare services is widely considered a primary duty of the government. Universal access to medical care can be considered a basic ingredient of the so-called “European social model.” But if universal access to medical care is seldom questioned, European governments—faced with expanding costs caused by an increasing demand driven by an aging population and technology-driven improvements—are contemplating the possibility of “rationing”1 treatments, or the possibility of allowing a greater role for private suppliers. If a (...) “multi-tier” healthcare system has long been anathema to the European leadership, guaranteeing a uniform access to state-of-the-art care seems to be well beyond the means of states suffering from persisting debt crisis. Was the failure of state-controlled “adequate” healthcare totally unpredictable? Far-sighted criticisms had been offered by two eminent thinkers in the classical liberal tradition, Herbert Spencer and Friedrich A. von Hayek . Neither author is usually recognized as a forerunner of contemporary critics of the welfare state, and both investigated the issue of the state financing and providing health services well before or right after the establishment of national health services. With the benefit of hindsight, reading Spencer and Hayek helps us to understand how the crisis of state-supplied healthcare is not rooted in the mere progress of clinical technology, but is rather the logical consequence of the theoretical basis of the model itself. Whereas modern theorists of the welfare state tend to offer theories that are impervious to a critical appraisal of their unintended consequences—insofar as they are framed in a language of “rights”—both Hayek and Spencer understood that human systems are complex, and that unwanted effects of public policy should be taken into account. Although Spencer emphasized the moral hazards accruing from the paternalism involved in governmental provision of health services, Hayek explained how modern healthcare systems differ from real, private insurance designed to offer proper coverage against risks. These authors appreciated that the politicization of healthcare was bound to result in both standardization of care and disregard for the responsibility that comes with personal freedom. These two “diagnoses before the illness” can help us in defining the challenges and the potential solutions that healthcare systems face today. Understanding the fatal conceits inherent in the very architecture of national health services can be the first step toward healing our healthcare systems. (shrink)

Antonio Rosmini-Serbati was one of the first natural law scholars to bring natural law thinking into a conversation with the market economic order that was beginning to emerge in Europe in the 19th century. His reflections on matters such as the origin, nature, and limits of private property, the role of the state, and the nature of human reason show him to be a unique, innovative thinker who nonetheless was determined to work within the parameters of Catholic doctrine. Many of (...) these ideas are concretized in his seminal work The Constitution Under Social Justice, a text that has profound instights to offer those today seeking to integrate theology, philosophy, and economics into their conceptions of a social order that aspires to be both free and just. (shrink)

This essay is my review of Colleen Dyble’s book, Taming Leviathan: Waging a War of Ideas around the World. Dyble is affiliated with the legendary classical liberal British think tank, the Institute of Economic Affairs. Her anthology is a collection of essays by people around the world who have been involved with similar free-market think tanks in countries with historically statist economic systems. These writers include Greg Lindsay, founder of the Center for Independent Studies in Australia; Margaret Tse, of the (...) Instituto Liberdade in Brazil; Michael Walker, co-founder of the Fraser Institute in Canada; Cristian Larroulet, of Libertad y Desarrollo in Chile; Giancarlo Ibarguen, of the Center for Economic and Social Studies in Guatemala (which actually founded a free-market-oriented university); Parth Shah, founder of the Center for Civil Society in India; Daniel Doron, co-founder of the Israeli Center for Social and Economic Progress; Alberto Mingardi, of the Instituto Bruno Leoni in Italy; Masaru Uchigama, founder of the Japanese for Tax Reform; Elena Leontjeva, co-founder of the Lithuanian Free Market Institute; Alexander Magno, co-founder of the Foundation for Economic Freedom in the Philippines; and last, Leon Louw, of the Free Market Foundation of South Africa. I then discuss seven important reasons why classical liberal think tanks are so important in modern societies. (shrink)

Wittgenstein defiende que los problemas filosóficos son ilegítimos. Sin embargo, no resulta del todo claro qué se entiende en general por problema filosófico, cuál es, pues, su naturaleza. El presente artículo intenta elucidar la observación de Wittgenstein que sostiene que la forma de un problema filosófico se puede presentar con la expresión “Yo no sé salir del atolladero” (IF § 123). En el artículo se elige, a manera de ejemplo, el escándalo kantiano, que demanda que demostremos con el uso de (...) la razón que la proposición “hay objetos físicos” es verdadera. Sin renunciar al ejemplo, se explora en qué sentido la expresión de Wittgenstein caracteriza en buena medida la naturaleza misma de la dificultad filosófica. En el ejercicio se atienden recomendaciones formales del Tractatus, terapias desplegadas en Sobre la Certeza y el recurso de distinguir entre sentido primario y sentido secundario de una expresión insinuado en las Investigaciones Filosóficas. (shrink)

What is racism? is a timely question that is hotly contested in the philosophy of race. Yet disagreement about racism’s nature does not begin in philosophy, but in the sociopolitical domain. Alberto G. Urquidez argues that philosophers of race have failed to pay sufficient attention to the practical considerations that prompt the question “What is racism?” Most theorists assume that “racism” signifies a language-independent phenomenon that needs to be “discovered” by the relevant science or “uncovered” by close scrutiny of (...) everyday usage of this term. (Re-)Defining Racism challenges this metaphysical paradigm. Urquidez develops a Wittgenstein-inspired framework that illuminates the use of terms like “definition,” “meaning,” “explanation of meaning,” and “disagreement,” for the analysis of contested normative concepts. These elucidations reveal that providing a definition of “racism” amounts to recommending a form of moral representation—a rule for the correct use of “racism.” As definitional recommendations must be justified on pragmatic grounds, Urquidez takes as a starting point for justification the interests of racism's historical victims. (shrink)

The Handbook of Bioethical Decisions Volume II addresses and analyzes the most important ethical concerns and moral quandaries related to scientific integrity and institutional ethics. It counts on two parts, Part One: Research Ethics, which addresses issues related to Scientific Integrity, Research Misconduct and Conducting Ethical Research, and Part Two: Institutional Ethics and Bioethics Committees, which explores Institutional Ethics issues, Ethics and Bioethics Committees’ roles and scopes, and Bioethical Issues in Institutional Ethics. Consequently, the Handbook, Vol. II, offers a remarkable (...) collection of works by outstanding international experts on institutional and research ethics, in order for bioethics practitioners to obtain better elements to address key issues related to integrity in research as well as to decision-making processes. In this fashion, this volume is a valuable resource for professionals working on different bioethical and biomedical fields, such as, ethics and bioethics committees, health care institutions, biomedical and pharmacological companies, and academic settings, among others. Chapter 26 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com. (shrink)

Con esta ceremonia culminan los actos del otorgamiento del título de Doctor Honoris Causa de la Universidad de Buenos Aires al filósofo, maestro de maestros, Thomas Moro Simpson.De este modo nuestra Universidad, siguiendo una noble idea iniciada por los romanos mucho antes de que existieran las universidades, la idea de destacar la labor de aquellos ciudadanos que hubieran contribuido notablemente a mejorar la vida de la ciudad común, ha resuelto hacer público su reconocimiento de los excepcionales méritos intelectuales, éticos y (...) académicos de nuestro querido Tomás Simpson. He sido encargado de recordar ahora, sumariamente, ante la comunidad universitaria y, con eso, ante nuestra comunidad simpliciter, algunos de los motivos que condujeron a esta resolución. (shrink)

Unamuno saw in his defense of religious faith a response to Nietzsche’s criticisms of the Christian, agapeic way of life. To Nietzsche’s claim that engaging in this way of life is something antinatural and life‐denying, insofar as it goes against the (alleged) natural tendency to increase one’s own power, Unamuno responded that an agapeic way of life is precisely a direct expression of this natural tendency. Far from being something that goes against our natural inclinations, Unamuno says, an agapeic way (...) of life is a life‐affirming exercise, something we are led to given our own natural condition. Hence, the aim of this essay is to comment on Unamuno’s criticism of Nietzsche and to point out the philosophical relevance of Unamuno’s attempt to provide a natural foundation for religious faith when assessing Nietzsche’s criticisms of the possibility of carrying out a Christian, agapeic way of life. (shrink)

Focusing especially on Science and the Modern World, this article explores Whitehead's understanding of the social contexts and repercussions of mathematical and scientific abstraction. It investigates his remarks on the need to offset pernicious practices of abstraction in the context of a renewed concern with the link between conceptuality and materiality in social theory. Whitehead's inquiry into the problematic legacy of Galileo and scientific materialism is then contrasted with a different diagnosis of the abstractive maladies of modern society, the one (...) put forward under the Marxist rubric of `real abstraction'. While both stances allow us to explore the social repercussions of abstractive practices, it is argued that an understanding of the practically abstract character of capitalism permits us to identify the limits of Whitehead's pedagogical wish to reform our culture of abstraction. (shrink)

En un estilo claro, despojado de t rminos t cnicos, Alberto Clemente de la Torre traza un recorrido por los principales t picos de la f sica cu ntica destinados a todos aquellos que quieren descubrir uno de los temas m s sugerentes de la ciencia contempor nea, sin exigirles Para ello conocimientos previos.

The Covid-19 pandemic has further intensified a crisis in the functions and the perception of the state. It has also revealed underlying contradictions in both mainstream and radical ideologies of the state. A desire for the state as guarantor of public welfare vies with fear of the state’s hypertrophic capacities for surveillance and control. Following a brief exploration of the intimate modern connection between plagues and the state, the article tries to map some of the ways in which the state (...) has been at stake in political and theoretical commentaries on the pandemic. Is an epidemiological politics from below, beyond the plague state, possible? Can recent emergency measures be seen as incomplete or inverted anticipations of a communist use of the state of exception? Or is the primacy of the political we are currently experiencing a mere fetish, indissociable from the rule of capital? (shrink)

Angelaki, Volume 16, Issue 3, Page 125-136, September 2011.

In a paper published recently in this journal, Buben attempted to show the philosophical relevance of Unamuno’s philosophical works when addressing the current debate on whether an endless existence would be something desirable—a debate which is nowadays commonly known as “The Makropulos Debate” since it was Bernard Williams’s “The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality” that aroused interest in this question among contemporary analytic philosophers. Unfortunately, Buben’s paper fails to capture or even outline the reasoning behind Unamuno’s claim (...) that we all naturally long for an endless existence —and consequently it also fails to clarify how Unamuno’s position may contribute to the current philosophical debate on the question as to whether an endless existence would be something desirable. In this paper I will point out that Unamuno’s affirmation that we all, without exception, long for an endless existence is grounded in his metaphysical claim that the most basic and natural inclination of all singular things is to increase their own singularity. In doing so, I will also be showing that Unamuno’s proposal is not philosophically relevant when addressing the current debate on the question as to whether living an endless existence would be something desirable. (shrink)

There has been some concern m recent years that economic interests in the biotechnology area could, particularly through patenting, have a constricting influence on scientific research. Despite this concern, there have been no studies of this phenomenon beyond isolated cases. In this article we examine the evolution of the biomedical field of hybridoma/monoclonal antibody research with detailed examples of the three types of patent claims that have emerged there—basic claims, claims on application techniques, and claims on specific antibodies. We analyze (...) the impact of these claims and their legal histories on the free flow of scientific information and, the activity of scientific researchers. We conclude that such patent claims present severe restrictions for both, not only in the monoclonal area but in general, amounting to a subtle but significant shift in the political economy of science and technology. (shrink)

Il saggio si interroga sul rapporto tra immagine di libro e lettura, muovendo dalla constatazione che solo la trasformazione dei lettori in ambito umanistico (con il rifiuto della glossa) ha cambiato l’idea del libro diffusa nel Medioevo. Il nuovo disegno della pagina, di maggiore ordine e leggibilità, si è consolidato nei secoli, e la nuova immagine di libro è rimasta immutata, nonostante le innovazioni, nell’editoria moderna. Solo l’avvento delle nuove tecnologie digitali ha suggerito una nuova immagine, che, tuttavia, non è (...) ancora né pienamente definita né ben consolidata; alle posizioni di chi ha individuato il libro nuovo nella forma dell’ipertesto (letto anche sui vecchi pc), il saggio affianca le riflessioni di chi cerca l’immagine nuova nell’e-book letto su un e-reader, sottolineando tuttavia che si è solo agli inizi di una lunga trasformazione. This essay concerns the relationship between the image of the book and how it reads. It begins from the observation that only the change of the readers during the humanistic age has transformed the widespread perception of the book in the Middle Ages. The new layout of the page, neater and more readable, became well established in the following centuries, and that image of the book in the modern publishing industry has remained unchanged, in spite of innovations. New digital technologies have proposed a new image, that however is neither clearly defined nor well established. The essay underlines the observations of those who believe that the hypertext form is the new book, even readable on the old pc, and the observations of those that think of e-book as a new image, that can be read only on the e-reader. The essay ends with the idea that we are at the beginning of a long change. (shrink)

http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/1808-1711.2012v16n2p319 In Re-Thinking Science. Knowledge and the Public in an Age of Uncertainty (2001) H. Nowotny, P. Scott, e M. Gibbons vindicate a “socially robust” scientific knowledge in accordance with the social needs of our time. Such a knowledge would not be just epistemically reliable; in addition, it would also fit the situations to which will be put to use, and take into account the consequences of its utilization. In the authors’ view, this new kind of science, which they call (...) “Mode 2 knowledge” in another book, would do justice to a society that is not restrained to receive or ask for scientific information, but also requires sharing in its production. Nowotny and her colleagues mention several epistemological changes which a “robust” knowledge would involve. In this paper I analyze some of those alleged changes. (shrink)

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Francis Bacon foi considerado por alguns pensadores o pai do método experimental. Outros filósofos o acusaram de advogar um empi-rismo naif. Em nosso artigo pretendemos identificar as peculiaridades do tipo de empirismo abraçado por Bacon. Os mais duros críticos de Bacon têm destacado sua retórica fatualista e têm dispensado pouca atenção à complexidade de um sistema metodológico que atribui papel crucial à evidência negativa. Negligenciam principalmente o real significado epis-temológico de sua proposta de uma indução eliminatória. Associando Bacon rigidamente a (...) uma espécie de empirismo justificacionista deixam de detectar importantes ingredientes falibilistas em sua obra. Por aspirar a identificar o que pode haver de falibilismo na obra de Bacon este artigo questionará a avaliação que Popper faz de Bacon ao apresentá-lo como o grande representante do empirismo ingênuo e dogmático. Por mais que sejam procedentes algumas das críticas que Popper dirige a Bacon, mos-traremos que sua leitura repete velhos clichês sobre o autor do Novum Organum.Some philosophers regard Francis Bacon as the father of ex-perimental method. Others accuse Bacon of defending a naïf empiricist theory of knowledge. In this article I try to identify the peculiarities of the empiricism supported by Bacon. Bacon’s most severe critics emphasize his factualist rhetoric, paying no sufficient attention to the complexity of a methodological system that attributes a crucial role to negative evidence. They neglect the real epistemological meaning of Bacon’s proposal of an eliminative induction. As a rule, such critics are unable to detect the important fallibilist features present in Bacon’s work because they tend to, uncritically, identify him with a kind of em-piricist justificationism. The purpose of this article is to investigate the possible fallibilist elements in Bacon’s writings. By so doing, I shall challenge Popper’s evaluation of Bacon’s philosophy of science. I dis-agree with Popper when he describes Bacon as a dogmatic and naïf empiricist. Although some of the criticisms Popper addresses to Bacon are well-founded, I will argue that the general reconstruction of Ba-con’s inductivism carried out by Popper is not fully defensible. (shrink)

Baseado no cogito cartesiano, mas também o submetendo a importantes reformulações, Husserl desenvolve o seu próprio conceito de subjetividade transcendental. Tais reformulações concernem, sobretudo, aos tópicos do tempo, da redução e da intersubjetividade. O presente artigo pretende apresentar e discutir como se vinculam tais temas, visando a contribuir na compreensão do estatuto do transcendental na fenomenologia husserliana. PALAVRAS-CHAVE – Husserl. Subjetividade transcendental. Tempo. ABSTRACT Based on Cartesian cogito, but also submitting it to important reformations, Husserl develops his own concept of (...) transcendental subjectivity. These reformations concern especially the topics of time, reduction and intersubjectivity. This article intends to present and discuss the link of these themes, aiming contribute to the comprehension of the status of transcendental in husserlian phenomenology. KEY WORDS – Husserl. Transcendental subjectivity. Time. (shrink)