"Alternative Selves" and Authority in the Fiction of Jane Urquhart The article engages with "alternative selves," a concept found in The Stone Carvers by a Canadian writer, Jane Urquhart. Her fiction is first seen in the context of selected texts by Lucy Maud Montgomery, Margaret Laurence and Alice Munro, who explore the clash between female characters' conventional roles and their "secret" selves. My analysis was inspired by Pamela Sue Anderson's A Feminist Philosophy of Religion, which stresses the (...) need for "reinventing ourselves as other" in the face of biased beliefs and dominant epistemology. In particular, my article refers to Anderson's concern with Kant's imaginary from The Critique of Pure Reason, where "the territory of pure understanding" is projected on the island, while desire, chaos and death are identified with the sea. Seen through the prism of a feminist reading of the philosophical imaginary, the sea becomes the female beyond. Urquhart's three novels: Away, The Stone Carvers and A Map of Glass dissolve the opposition between Kantian island and water, by showing how reason is invaded by desire and death, and how the female protagonist embodies the elements that have been repressed. Urquhart's fiction, which is "landscape driven," provides the image of a dynamic relationship between the qualities that form a static binary opposition in Kantian discourse. Mary in Away, Klara in The Stone Carvers and Sylvia in A Map of Glass all subvert the dominant epistemology by following their desire, which becomes "a positive energy" and not "a deviation from a good rational norm," to refer to another concept by Anderson. Urquhart's Mary, Klara and Sylvia have to contend with power vested in collective beliefs and stereotypical construction of femininity. By venturing into the liminal zone beyond the territory of "pure understanding," the three protagonists regain their voices and discover their authority. The article ends with the analysis of a Homeric intertext in A Map of Glass, where Sylvia identifies with Odysseus "lashed to mast" so that he would not respond to the call of the siren song. Reading Homer's passage on the siren song, one realizes that the use of the Kantian imaginary turns Ithaca into the island of truth, and the sea into the stormy beyond, identified with desire, death and femaleness. While the Odyssey suppresses the dangerous message of the siren song, Urquhart's fiction rewrites it and reclaims it as positive inspiration for the female protagonist. (shrink)

This book is a complete re-thinking of Aristotle's metaphysical theory of material substances. The view of the author is that the 'substances' are the living things, the organisms: chiefly, the animals. There are three main parts to the book: Part I, a treatment of the concepts of substance and nonsubstance in Aristotle's Categories; Part III, which discusses some important features of biological objects as Aristotelian substances, as analysed in Aristotle's biological treatises and the de Anima; and Part V, which attempts (...) to relate the conception of substance as interpreted so far to that of the Metaphysics itself. The main aim of the study is to recreate in modern imagination a vivid, intuitive understanding of Aristotle's concept of material substance: a certain distinctive concept of what an individual material object is. (shrink)

When talking about personal identity in the context of medical ethics, ethicists tend to borrow haphazardly from different philosophical notions of personal identity, or to abjure these abstract metaphysical concerns as having nothing to do with practical questions in medical ethics. In fact, however, part of the moral authority for respecting a patient’s self-regarding decisions can only be made sense of if we make certain assumptions that are central to a particular, psychological picture of personal identity, namely, that patients will (...) remain psychologically connected to a certain degree with their future selves. I draw this out, show problems with approaches in medical ethics based on alternate theories of personal identity that do not recognise this, and explore some important implications. Namely, I show how this recognition can better explain the circumstances under which we should respect advance directives and why, and how it can better make sense of patient fears that they will not "survive" personality-altering deep brain stimulation procedures, and provide guidance on approaching patient decisions concerning this type of procedure in a manner that captures and addresses such concerns. (shrink)

Background In June 2016, the Parliament of Canada passed federal legislation allowing eligible adults to request Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID). Since its implementation, there likely exists a degree of hesitancy among some healthcare providers due to the law being inconsistent with personal beliefs and values. It is imperative to explore how nurses in Quebec experience the shift from accompanying palliative clients through “a natural death” to participating in “a premeditated death.” Research question/aim/objectives This study aims to explore how Quebec (...) nurses personally and professionally face the new practice of MAID and their role evolution. Research design A grounded theory design was used. Participants and research context We recruited 37 nurses who participated in or coordinated at least one MAID. Semi-structured interviews and focus groups were conducted and audiotaped. Data collection and analysis followed Strauss and Corbin steps. Ethical considerations Ethics approval was received from the investigator’s affiliated University. Participants were informed regarding the research goal, signed a written consent, and were assigned pseudonyms. Findings/results Results show that nurses experienced the wide range of paradoxe during MAID centering around the following eight elements: 1) confrontation abouth death, 2) choice, 3) time of death, 4) emotional load, 5) new Bill, 6) relationship with the person, 7) communication skills, and 8) healthcare setting. The shifting of views and values in this new role is presented by the contradiction of opposites. Conclusions A better understanding of the paradox experienced by nurses involved with MAID paves the way for the development of interventions. (shrink)

This book is a re-thinking of Aristotle's metaphysical theory of material substances. The view of the author is that the 'substances' are the living things, the organisms: chiefly, the animals. There are three main parts to the book: Part I, a treatment of the concepts of substance and nonsubstance in Aristotle's Categories; Part III, which discusses some important features of biological objects as Aristotelian substances, as analysed in Aristotle's biological treatises and the de Anima; and Part V, which attempts to (...) relate the conception of substance as interpreted so far to that of the Metaphysics itself. The main aim of the study is to recreate in modern imagination a vivid, intuitive understanding of Aristotle's concept of material substance: a certain distinctive concept of what an individual material object is. (shrink)

¿Es posible un decálogo del agua en la era de la globalización y la liberalización de todos los mercados y recursos naturales? Maude Barlow así lo cree y nos propone 10 principios básicos para mantener un equilibrio del agua entre las necesidades humanas y el mundo natural. El agua no puede concebirse simplemente como un recurso explotable, sino como un patrimonio del planeta y para las próximas generaciones. Los 10 principios de Barlow, más que un código, representan una invitación a (...) pensar la sustentabilidad a partir de lo local. (shrink)

Despite the rapid adoption of technology in human resource departments, there is little empirical work that examines the potential challenges of algorithmic decision-making in the recruitment process. In this paper, we take the perspective of job applicants and examine how they perceive the use of algorithms in selection and recruitment. Across four studies on Amazon Mechanical Turk, we show that people in the role of a job applicant perceive algorithm-driven recruitment processes as less fair compared to human only or algorithm-assisted (...) human processes. This effect persists regardless of whether the outcome is favorable to the applicant or not. A potential mechanism underlying algorithm resistance is the belief that algorithms will not be able to recognize their uniqueness as a candidate. Although the use of algorithms has several benefits for organizations such as improved efficiency and bias reduction, our results highlight a potential cost of using them to screen potential employees during recruitment. (shrink)

Lucy Allais presents an original interpretation of Kant's transcendental idealism. She argues that his distinction between things in themselves and things as they appear to us has both epistemological and metaphysical components. Kant is committed to a genuine idealism about things as they appear to us, but this is not a phenomenalist idealism. He is committed to the claim that there is an aspect of reality that grounds mind-dependent spatio-temporal objects, and which we cannot cognize, but he does not (...) assert the existence of distinct non-spatio-temporal objects. On Allais's account, we cannot understand Kant's idealism without a clear account of his notion of intuition and of the role of intuition in cognition: she understands Kantian intuitions as representations that give us acquaintance with the objects of thought. This enables us to make sense of Kant's central argument for his idealism in the Transcendental Aesthetic, and to see why he takes the complete idealist position to be established there. (shrink)

Individuals often lie for psychological rewards (e.g., preserving self image and/or protecting others), absent economic rewards. We conducted a laboratory experiment, using a modified dictator game, to identify conditions that entice individuals to lie solely for psychological rewards. We argue that such lies can provide a ready means for individuals to manage others’ impression of them. We investigated the effect of social distance (the perceived familiarity, intimacy, or psychological proximity between two parties) and knowledge of circumstances (whether parties have common (...) or asymmetric information) on the frequency of lying. We found that lying occurs more frequently when social distance is near and that the effect is exacerbated when information is asymmetric. Our theoretical development suggests that, under these conditions, individuals’ need to manage others’ impression is magnified. We discuss the implications of our findings. (shrink)

Individuals often lie for psychological rewards (e.g., preserving self image and/or protecting others), absent economic rewards. We conducted a laboratory experiment, using a modified dictator game, to identify conditions that entice individuals to lie solely for psychological rewards. We argue that such lies can provide a ready means for individuals to manage others’ impression of them. We investigated the effect of social distance (the perceived familiarity, intimacy, or psychological proximity between two parties) and knowledge of circumstances (whether parties have common (...) or asymmetric information) on the frequency of lying. We found that lying occurs more frequently when social distance is near and that the effect is exacerbated when information is asymmetric. Our theoretical development suggests that, under these conditions, individuals’ need to manage others’ impression is magnified. We discuss the implications of our findings. (shrink)

This paper will critically examine the use of evidence in creating policy in the area of reproductive technologies. The use of evidence in health care and policy is not a new phenomenon. However, codified strategies for evidence appraisal in health care technology assessments and attempts to create evidence based policy initiatives suggest that the way evidence is used in practice and policy has changed. This paper will examine this trend by considering what is counted as ‘good’ evidence, difficulties in translating (...) evidence into policy and practice and how evidence interacts with principles. To illustrate these points the removal of gamete donor anonymity in the UK in 2005 and the debates that preceded this change in the law will be examined. It will be argued that evidence will only ever take us so far and attention should also be paid to the underlying principles that guide policy. The paper will conclude with suggestions for how underlying principles can be more rigorously used in policy formation. (shrink)

Maud Boyer Arnaud Destrebecqz Axel Cleeremans.

In Belief, Inference, and the Self-Conscious Mind (BISCM), Eric Marcus analyses and responds to a core set of puzzles concerning belief and inference. Most centrally on offer are: an explanation of non-evidential/non-observational doxastic self-knowledge, an explanation of the unintelligibility of Moore-Paradoxical statements, an account of inference (built on an interpretation of the ‘Taking Condition’) fit to solve the Lewis Carroll regress, and an account of what constitutes the unity of the rational mind. Marcus’ answers depend on viewing beliefs as essentially (...) self-known and expressible (through asserting their contents (“P”), or avowing them in a self-ascription (“I believe that P”)). Beliefs are also held to (metaphysically) necessarily exclude their contradictories, and (metaphysically) necessitate their implications. Or at least they do in their paradigm form; when they are ‘in mind’ (an important theoretical concept Marcus makes much use of throughout the book. In this paradigmatic form, Marcus terms them judgments. A significant achievement of BISCM is in how, despite the strength of these and other core commitments (theses variously acknowledged to be “very strong”, “wildly unpopular”, and “singularly anachronistic”, Marcus remains utterly clear-eyed about the need to pass the plausibility test. Nowhere, for example, does he lose sight of the fact that we are “distinctively liable to irrationality”, including to self-deception (which is analysed in terms of both belief and the doxastic self-knowledge which essentially accompanies it on Marcus’ view, being ‘out of mind’). A second, and related strength is in the connections Marcus traces between both expressive and rational mental capacities. This is relatively rare in many of the literatures Marcus is engaging with, especially in the first half of the book. Marcus (building on earlier work) shows how such a synthesis can bear serious fruit, not least in his excellent analysis of Moore-Paradoxical unintelligibility. There is a lot one could say about what is exciting and valuable about each element of Marcus’ discussion. And inevitably for a book so bold and full of riches, there is also a lot one might question about these elements. But as Marcus emphasises, what is on offer is “… not a collection of discrete solutions to putatively separate problems [but] a unified conception of the mind in its theoretical orientation”. And what I want to press him on is a big-picture question: what are the boundaries, and what is the internal structure, of the mind's ‘theoretical’ orientation? For, for all the important and detailed work throughout the book, in which a general conception of believing is suggested, tested, refined, and applied, I don't yet have a stable sense of Marcus’ answers to these questions. (shrink)

« Il y a 9 mois, pour que les choses changent et après avoir travaillé sur mon sujet depuis plus de 15 ans, je fais le choix d'abandonner mon confort en devenant (bénévolement) la nouvelle déléguée nationale à l'Environnement chez Les Républicains. Je l'ai accepté dans le but unique de porter mes convictions. J'y ai proposé un programme précis, destiné à être appliqué. Puis je suis partie en campagne pour les régionales et j'ai été élue vice-présidente au développement durable, à (...) l'énergie et à la mer en PACA. J'ai la volonté de transformer ma région en un laboratoire d'idées. Je suis déterminée pour qu'elle devienne le porte-drapeau d'une écologie qui rime avec économie. Je veux agir dans ma région sans langue de bois, faire progresser l'écologie en étant réaliste et cohérente. Il est temps de dire la vérité. Je veux donner les vrais chiffres, arrêter le catastrophisme, « l'écologiquement correct », ne pas faire de calcul populiste. On est en 2016, il serait temps de secouer les choses et de changer de modèle. Je suis prête à en payer le prix, ma cause en vaut la peine : des tempêtes j'en ai vu d'autres. Je veux aussi parler de la place des femmes en politique, du sexisme. De l'intérieur, je vais vous raconter ce basculement d'une vie de sportive ayant été nommée personnalité de l'année par le Times magazine, à un milieu d'hommes auxquels seule la loi impose la mixité. Je veux agir pour la qualité de notre environnement et sur nos choix énergétiques comme on monte une entreprise, avec sérieux mais sans oublier qui je suis. Osons! J'ai décidé de remettre en jeu tout ce que j'avais construit/acquis ces dernières années pour faire avancer mes convictions pour l'environnement. L'avenir me dira si le jeu en valait la chandelle. » Maud Fontenoy. (shrink)

Despite its long history of investigating sociality, phenomenology has, to date, said little about online sociality. The phenomenological tradition typically claims that empathy is the fundamental way in which we experience others and their experiences. While empathy is discussed almost exclusively in the context of face-to-face interaction, I claim that we can empathetically perceive others and their experiences in certain online situations. Drawing upon the phenomenological distinction between the physical, objective body and the expressive, lived body, I: (i) highlight that (...) empathy involves perceiving the other’s expressive, lived body, (ii) show that the lived body is not tied to the physical body and that empathy can take place outside of face-to-face interactions, and (iii) argue that the lived body can enter online space and is empathetically available to others there. I explore two ways in which the other’s lived body enters online space and can be empathetically perceived: first, in cases where our face-to-face encounter is technologically-mediated over video link and, second, by showing how the other’s texts, as speech, can form part of the other’s lived body. Investigating empathy online not only furthers our understanding of online encounters but also leads to a refined conception of empathy more generally. (shrink)

This book considers the thought and personalities of two popular icons of twentieth century philosophical and psychological thought - Nietzsche and Jung - and reveals the extraordinary connections between them. Through a thorough examination of their work, Nietzsche and Jung succeeds in illuminating complex areas of Nietzsche's thought and resolving ambiguities in Jung's reception of these theories. This demonstration of how our understanding of analytical psychology can be enriched by investigating its philosophical roots will be of great interest to students (...) in psychology, philosophy and religion as well as practising Jungian analysts. (shrink)

Clinical trials emerged in rapid succession as the COVID-19 pandemic created an unprecedented need for life-saving therapies. Fair and equitable subject selection in clinical trials offering investigational therapies ought to be an urgent moral concern. Subject selection determines the distribution of risks and benefits, and impacts the applicability of the study results for the larger population. While Research Ethics Committees monitor fair subject selection within each trial, no standard oversight exists for subject selection across multiple trials for the same disease. (...) Drawing on the experience of multiple clinical trials at a single academic medical centre in the USA, we posit that concurrent COVID-19 trials are liable to unfair and inequitable subject selection on account of scientific uncertainty, lack of transparency, scarcity and, lastly, structural barriers to equity compounded by implicit bias. To address the critical gap in the current literature and international regulation, we propose new ethical guidelines for research design and conduct that bolsters fair and equitable subject selection. Although the proposed guidelines are tailored to the research design and protocol of concurrent trials in the COVID-19 pandemic, they may have broader relevance to single COVID-19 trials. (shrink)

Gerben Meynen (2019) invites us to consider the potential ethical implications of what he refers to as “thought apprehension” technology for psychiatric practice, that is, technologies that involve recording brain activity, and using this to infer what people are thinking (or intending, desiring, feeling, etc.). His article is wide-ranging, covering several different ethical principles, various situations psychiatrists might encounter in therapeutic, legal and correctional contexts, and a range of potential incarnations of this technology, some more speculative than others. Although Meynen’s (...) article raises some highly relevant potential implications of some “thought apprehension”-based neurotechnologies, which are certainly worthy of further exploration, I suggest that Meynen’s analysis is beset by two problems. First, some of the technologies that form the focus of his discussion are too speculative, and second, due to the many issues under consideration, some problems are not adequately characterized, relevant ethical principles are misidentified, and valuable literature is not sufficiently engaged with. Consideration of these weaknesses might allow us to better see how to conduct a fruitful analysis of speculative neurotechnologies. (shrink)

Uptake is typically understood as the hearer’s recognition of the speaker’s communicative intention. According to one theory of uptake, the hearer’s role is merely as a ratifier. The speaker, by expressing a particular communicative intention, predetermines what kind of illocutionary act she might perform. Her hearer can then render this act a success or a failure. Thus the hearer has no power over which act could be performed, but she does have some power over whether it is performed. Call this (...) the ratification theory of uptake. Several philosophers have recently endorsed an alternative theory of uptake, according to which the hearer can determine the nature of the act the speaker performs. According to this theory, if the hearer regards an utterance as illocutionary act y, then it is act y, even if the speaker intended to perform act x. Call this the constitution theory of uptake. The purported advantage of this theory is that it identifies a common but underanalysed way in which speakers can be silenced. I argue that despite its initial intuitive pull, the constitution theory of uptake should be rejected. It is incompatible with ordinary intuitions about speech, it entails a conceptual impossibility, and it has unsavoury political implications, entailing that marginalised speakers barely qualify as agents. (shrink)

En comparant sur plusieurs scènes la réception de mes recherches sur le travail bénévole – désenchantement pour les un.es, truisme pour les autres – et en prenant au sérieux le processus de politisation par l’enquête qui a été le mien, cet article propose une analyse située à la fois socialement et politiquement du désenchantement que produirait la sociologie catégorisée comme critique. Il met en lumière deux défenses de l’autonomie de l’engagement, au cœur de la critique de la critique : celui (...) de l’autonomie de « l’engagement citoyen » des acteur.trices et de leur rapport au travail, et celui de l’autonomie du travail du chercheur.se et de ses « engagements », généralement présenté sous le topos de la « neutralité » de la recherche. Ce retour réflexif sur les effets de l’enquête sur les autres, mais aussi sur moi-même, vient questionner in fine la portée sociale et politique de cette « conception des mondes antagonistes » inscrite dans une « doctrine de la séparation des sphères » du travail et de l’engagement qui concerne ici tant l’objet que la pratique de recherche. (shrink)

Espace d'expression et de discussion, les forums médiatiques font se rencontrer des individus aux opinions et appartenances variées. Il s'agit d'observer le rôle du dispositif communicationnel et la manière dont ses membres en usent: privilégient-ils la dimension conversationnelle ou publicitaire? quelle est la nature de cet espace public et des échanges qui s'y déroulent? L'analyse statistique et de contenu des courriels révèle un espace interactionnel de groupe où la publicité l'emporte sur la sociabilité, ainsi qu'une parole publique dégradée marquée par (...) l'incommunication et une dérive ethniciste.Space for expression and discussion forums are media meet individuals with varied opinions and affiliations. It is to observe the role of communicative device and how its members wear: they prefer the conversational dimension or advertising? What is the nature of public space and exchanges that take place? Statistical analysis and content of emails reveals a group interactional space where advertising outweighs sociability, and a degraded public speech marked by miscommunication and a drift ethnocentric. (shrink)

Actor network theory and supply chainmanagement theory provide suggestive researchdirections for understanding regional agri-foodnetworks. These theories claim that relationshipsbased upon trust and cooperation are critical to thestrength and vitality of the network. This means thatexploring and detailing these relationships among thesuppliers, producers, workers, processors, brokers,wholesalers, and retailers within specific regionalgeographies of these networks are critical forfurthering cooperation and trust. Key areas ofcooperation include resource sharing andapprenticeship programs. Employing food networks as akey unit of contextual analysis will deepen ourunderstanding of how (...) to enhance their resiliency andvibrancy. Important questions can be raised about thedifference gender makes for farmers, brokers,entrepreneurs, and workers in local food networks. (shrink)

How could the initial, drastic decisions to implement “lockdowns” to control the spread of COVID-19 infections be justifiable, when they were made on the basis of such uncertain evidence? We defend the imposition of lockdowns in some countries by first, and focusing on the UK, looking at the evidence that undergirded the decision, second, arguing that this provided us with sufficient grounds to restrict liberty given the circumstances, and third, defending the use of poorly-empirically-constrained epidemiological models as tools that can (...) legitimately guide public policy. (shrink)

Speech act theorists tend to hold that the illocutionary force of an utterance is determined by one interlocutor alone: either the speaker or the hearer. Yet experience tells us that the force of our utterances is not determined unilaterally. Rather, communication often feels collaborative. In this paper, I develop and defend a collaborative theory of illocutionary force, according to which the illocutionary force of an utterance is determined by an agreement reached by the speaker and the hearer. This theory, which (...) builds upon linguistic and sociological work on adjacency pairs and conversational interaction, can accommodate the complexity of speaker intentions (which may be disjunctive, indeterminate, and/or inconsistent over time), and renders speech act theory more compatible with theories of common ground. (shrink)

In this book, Lucy Jane Ward argues that although contemporary scholarship tends to divide Agnes Heller's work chronologically in terms of her “Marxist” and subsequent “post-Marxist” periods, a closer reading reveals her work as a continuing engagement both with and against Marx's idea of the human being rich in need.

Craig Callender claims that ‘time is the great informer’, meaning that the directions in which our ‘best’ physical theories inform are temporal. This is intended to be a metaphysical claim, and as such expresses a relationship between the physical world and information-gathering systems such as ourselves. This article gives two counterexamples to this claim, illustrating the fact that time and informative strength doubly dissociate, so the claim cannot be about physical theories in general. The first is a case where physical (...) theories inform in directions that we have no reason to regard as temporal. The second is a case where our best physical theories fail to inform in directions that we have independent (pre-theoretic) reasons to regard as temporal. Taking these two cases into account suggests that the connection Callender makes between time and informativeness is perspectival. The second case demonstrates that although scientists often seek information in temporal directions, the behaviour of the physical world can present serious difficulties for finding it. In response, this article proposes a perspectival reading of Callender’s claim, according to which the connection between time and informative strength has more to do with the aims and objectives of science than the workings of the physical world. (shrink)

In a recent article, Ethan Bradley and Mark Navin (2021) argue that vaccine refusal is not akin to free riding. Here, I defend one connection between vaccine refusal and free riding and suggest that, when viewed in conjunction with their other arguments, this might constitute a reason to mandate Covid-19 vaccination.

In this paper I offer a philosophical analysis of the act of ‘liking’ a post on social media. First, I consider what it means to ‘like’ something. I argue that ‘liking’ is best understood as a phatic gesture; it signals uptake and anoints the poster’s positive face. Next, I consider how best to theorise the power that comes with amassing many ‘likes’. I suggest that ‘like’ tallies alongside posts institute and record a form of digital social capital. Finally, I consider (...) whether ‘likes’ have ultimately improved online discourse. I argue that while the ‘liking’ function itself is relatively innocuous, public ‘like’ tallies introduce a corrosive motivation to online communication. By making the prospect of increased social capital perpetually salient to us, they encourage us to prioritise high levels of engagement over meaningful engagement. (shrink)

A new therapeutic strategy could break the stalemate in the war on cancer by targeting not all cancerous cells but the small fraction that lie at the root of cancers. Lucie Laplane offers a comprehensive analysis of cancer stem cell theory, based on an original interdisciplinary approach that combines biology, biomedical history, and philosophy.

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, high hopes were put on digital contact tracing, using mobile phone apps to record and immediately notify contacts when a user reports as infected. Such apps can now be downloaded in many countries, but as second waves of COVID-19 are raging, these apps are playing a less important role than anticipated. We argue that this is because most countries have opted for app configurations that cannot provide a means of rapidly informing users of (...) likely infections while avoiding too many false positive reports. Mathematical modelling suggests that differently configured apps have the potential to do this. These require, however, that some pseudonymised data be stored on a central server, which privacy advocates have cautioned against. We contend that their influential arguments are subject to two fallacies. First, they have tended to one-sidedly focus on the risks that centralised data storage entails for privacy, while paying insufficient attention to the fact that inefficient contact tracing involves ethical risks too. Second, while the envisioned system does entail risks of breaches, such risks are also present in decentralised systems, which have been falsely presented as ‘privacy preserving by design’. When these points are understood, it becomes clear that we must rethink our approach to digital contact tracing in our fight against COVID-19. There are no data in this work. (shrink)

During the Covid-19 pandemic we increasingly turned to technology to stay in touch with our family, friends, and colleagues. Even as lockdowns and restrictions ease many are encouraging us to embrace the replacement of face-to-face encounters with technologically mediated ones. Yet, as philosophers of technology have highlighted, technology can transform the situations we find ourselves in. Drawing insights from the phenomenology of sociality, we consider how digitally-enabled forms of communication and sociality impact our experience of one another. In particular, we (...) draw attention to the way in which our embodied experience of one another is altered when we meet in digital spaces, taking as our focus the themes of perceptual access, intercorporeality, shared space, transitional spaces, and self-presentation. In light of the way in which technological mediation alters various dimensions of our social encounters, we argue that digital encounters constitute their own forms of sociality requiring their own phenomenological analysis. We conclude our paper by raising some broader concerns about the very framework of thinking about digitally and non-digitally mediated social encounters simply in terms of replacement. (shrink)

Jaakko Hintikka points out the power of Skolem functions to affect both what there is and what we know. There is a tension in his presupposition that these functions actually extend the realm of logic. He claims to have resolved the tension by “reconstructing constructivism” along epistemological lines, instead of by a typical ontological construction; however, after the collapse of the distinction between first and second order, that resolution is not entirely satisfactory. Still, it does throw light on the conceptual (...) analysis Hintikka proposes. (shrink)

Seen as contributing to human enhancement, implanted technologies have recently been receiving a lot of attention. However, reflections on these technologies have taken the shape of rather speculative ethical judgments on “hyped” technological devices. On the other hand, while science and technology studies and philosophy of technology have a long tradition of analyzing how technological artifacts and tools transform and configure our lives, they tend to focus on use configurations rather than the intimate relations brought about by implanted technologies. Even (...) the cyborg has lost some of its hermeneutic power as it has been detached from its material grounds, becoming a discursive entity. In this article, I reclaim the importance of materiality and explore how people live with spinal cord stimulation, which is a type of neuromodulation technology. Implanted in bodies and seemingly out of sight, this technology does not cease to matter. Embodiment and incorporation are crucial for people to live well with SCS. Embodying the neuromodulation technology entails groping processes in which gestures are central and an increased intimacy with one’s bodily materiality. Incorporating it is highly relational and entangled with the bodies of loved and distant ones, humans and nonhumans. (shrink)

The literature on patient public involvement and engagement (PPIE) in health research has grown significantly in the last decade, with a diverse range of definitions and topologies promulgated. This has led to disputes over what the central functions and purpose of PPIE in health research is, and this in turn makes it difficult to assess and evaluate PPIE in practice. This paper argues that the most important function of PPIE is the attempt to make health research more democratic. Bringing this (...) function to the fore and locating PPIE in the wider context of changes in contemporary forms of democratic engagement provides greater conceptual clarity over what PPIE in research should be trying to achieve. Conceptualizing PPIE as a form of democratization has a number of benefits. First, theories of what are appropriate, normatively justifiable and workable criteria for PPIE practices can be developed, and this can provide tools to address the legitimacy and accountability questions that have troubled the PPIE community. Second, this work can be used to form the basis of a research agenda to investigate how PPIE in health research operates, and how it can facilitate and/or improve democratic processes in health research. (shrink)

In this chapter, I explore how experiences of social belonging might emerge and be sustained in online communities, drawing from the work on rituals by Randall Collins. I argue that rather than viewing mediated interactions in terms of whether they are suitable substitutes for face-to-face interactions, we should consider mediated encounters in their own right. This allows us to recognize the creative ways that people can create rituals in a mediated setting and thus support and create a sense of belonging (...) with others online. I also highlight how some online platforms not only support online rituals but that they are well-positioned to create and circulate collective symbols (or sacred objects) of groups and, thus, can continue to scaffold and sustain on-going feelings of belonging. (shrink)

In this paper, we introduce the Japanese philosopher Tetsurō Watsuji’s phenomenology of aidagara (“betweenness”) and use his analysis in the contemporary context of online space. We argue that Watsuji develops a prescient analysis anticipating modern technologically-mediated forms of expression and engagement. More precisely, we show that instead of adopting a traditional phenomenological focus on face-to-face interaction, Watsuji argues that communication technologies — which now include Internet-enabled technologies and spaces — are expressive vehicles enabling new forms of emotional expression, shared experiences, (...) and modes of betweenness that would be otherwise inaccessible. Using Watsuji’s phenomenological analysis, we argue that the Internet is not simply a sophisticated form of communication technology that expresses our subjective spatiality (although it is), but that it actually gives rise to new forms of subjective spatiality itself. We conclude with an exploration of how certain aspects of our online interconnections are hidden from lay users in ways that have significant political and ethical implications. (shrink)

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, high hopes were placed on digital contact tracing. Digital contact tracing apps can now be downloaded in many countries, but as further waves of COVID-19 tear through much of the northern hemisphere, these apps are playing a less important role in interrupting chains of infection than anticipated. We argue that one of the reasons for this is that most countries have opted for decentralised apps, which cannot provide a means of rapidly informing users (...) of likely infections while avoiding too many false positive reports. Centralised apps, in contrast, have the potential to do this. But policy making was influenced by public debates about the right app configuration, which have tended to focus heavily on privacy, and are driven by the assumption that decentralised apps are “privacy preserving by design”. We show that both types of apps are in fact vulnerable to privacy breaches, and, drawing on principles from safety engineering and risk analysis, compare the risks of centralised and decentralised systems along two dimensions, namely the probability of possible breaches and their severity. We conclude that a centralised app may in fact minimise overall ethical risk, and contend that we must reassess our approach to digital contact tracing, and should, more generally, be cautious about a myopic focus on privacy when conducting ethical assessments of data technologies. (shrink)

The notion of respect for autonomy dominates bioethical discussion, though what qualifies precisely as autonomous action is notoriously elusive. In recent decades, the notion of autonomy in medical contexts has often been defined in opposition to the notion of autonomy favoured by theoretical philosophers. Where many contemporary theoretical accounts of autonomy place emphasis on a condition of “authenticity”, the special relation a desire must have to the self, bioethicists often regard such a focus as irrelevant to the concerns of medical (...) ethics, and too stringent for use in practical contexts. I argue, however, that the very condition of authenticity that forms a focus in theoretical philosophy is also essential to autonomy and competence in medical ethics. After tracing the contours of contemporary authenticity-based theories of autonomy, I consider and respond to objections against the incorporation of a notion of authenticity into accounts of autonomy designed for use in medical contexts. By looking at the typical problems that arise when making judgments concerning autonomy or competence in a medical setting, I reveal the need for a condition of authenticity—as a means of protecting choices, particularly high-stakes choices, from being restricted or overridden on the basis of intersubjective disagreement. I then turn to the treatment of false and contestable beliefs, arguing that it is only through reference to authenticity that we can make important distinctions in this domain. Finally, I consider a potential problem with my proposed approach; its ability to deal with anorexic and depressive desires. (shrink)

À partir des deux théophanies de Nicolas de Cues et de Leibniz, qui donnent à l’homme une place privilégiée au sein du monde créé, du fait de son statut de miroir ou image vivante qui reflète ou exprime le monde dans sa totalité, et de conceptions qui pensent la présence de l’infini dans le fini, on s’interroge ici sur la conception de la connaissance comme perspective de la monade chez Leibniz et la connaissance « quo modo capere possunt » des (...) créatures connaissantes dans l’univers cusain afin de voir si se tissent des liens de filiation évidents. On se demandera enfin si le système de l’expression, chez Leibniz, qui fait que toute monade exprime l’univers tout entier – ce qui semble proche de l’idée cusaine de la mens comme miroir ou image vivante – ne dépasse pas le perspectivisme « restrictif » de la conception cusaine et n’inscrit pas la démarche leibnizienne dans un dessein beaucoup plus large, qui nécessite un tissu de relations entre les différentes monades que constitue la compossibilité. Tout mouvement de connaissance est connaissance de toutes choses, mais dans un système de relations qui précède l’existence de la monade et qui résulte du calcul du meilleur, soumis au principe de non-contradiction.Ainsi, si un héritage réel semble se dessiner entre Nicolas de Cues et Leibniz, qui place le sujet connaissant au centre de l’édifice créé par Dieu, ou Création, dans une démarche à la fois libre et dépendante du principe premier, il faut comprendre que les deux systèmes de pensée ne répondent pas tout à fait au même dessein. (shrink)

Le diptyque « Corps/Guerre(s) » s’impose comme une problématique essentielle au cœur du renouvellement de la connaissance du phénomène guerrier. La réflexion autour de la corporéité de la guerre a ouvert de nouveaux territoires afin de repenser l’expérience guerrière, notamment par une réévaluation des expériences collectives et intimes des violences. Les deux numéros de la revue Quasimodo s’inscrivent dans cet axe – au travers d’une démarche comparatiste, pluridisciplinaire et chronologique...