The practice and development of modern medicine requires large amounts of data, particularly in the domain of cancer. The future of personalized medicine lies neither with “genomic medicine” nor with “precision medicine”, but with “data medicine”. The establishment of this DM has required far-reaching changes, to establish four essential elements connecting patients and doctors: biobanks, databases, bioinformatic platforms and genomic platforms. The “transformation” of scientific research areas, such as genetics, bioinformatics and biostatistics, into clinical specialties has generated a new vision (...) of care. Molecular tumor boards are one response to these changes and are now providing better access to next-generation sequencing and new cancer treatments to patients with inoperable or metastatic cancers, and those for whom the usual treatment has failed. However, MTB face a crucial ethical challenge: maintaining and improving the trust of patients, clinicians, researchers and industry in academic medical centers supported by private or public funding rather than providing genetic data directly to private companies. We believe that, in this era of DM, appropriate modern digital communication networks will be required to maintain this trust and to improve the organization and effectiveness of the system. There is, therefore, a need to reconsider the form and content of informed consent documents at all academic medical centers and to introduce dynamic and electronic informed consent. (shrink)

Most human societies have undergone much greater change over the last few decades, or even years, than in the preceding millennia. This is partly due to the emergence of various phenomena in medici...

BackgroundSince 2006, the genetic testing company 23andMe has collected biological samples, self-reported information, and consent documents for biobanking and research from more than 1,000,000 individuals, through a direct-to-consumer online genetic-testing service providing a genetic ancestry report and a genetic health report. However, on November 22, 2013, the Food and Drug Administration halted the sale of genetic health testing, on the grounds that 23andMe was not acting in accordance with federal law, by selling tests of undemonstrated reliability as predictive tests for (...) medical risk factors. Consumers could still obtain the genetic ancestry report, but they no longer had access to the genetic health report in the United States. However, this did not prevent the company from continuing its health research, with previously obtained and future samples, provided that consent had been obtained from the consumers concerned, or with health reports for individuals from other countries. Furthermore, 23andMe was granted FDA authorization on February 19, 2015, first to provide reports about Bloom syndrome carrier status, and, more recently, to provide consumers with “carrier status” information for 35 genes known to cause disease.DiscussionIn this Debate, we highlight the likelihood that the primary objective of the company was probably two-fold: promoting itself within the market for predictive testing for human genetic diseases and ancestry at a low cost to consumers, and establishing a high-value database/biobank for research and personal information).SummaryBy dint of this marketing approach, a two-sided market has been established between the consumer and the research laboratories, involving the establishment of a database/DNA biobank for scientific and financial gain. We describe here the profound ethical issues raised by this setup. (shrink)

Networks for the exchange and/or sharing of genetic data are developing in many countries. We focus here on the situations in the US and France. We highlight some recent and remarkable differences between these two countries concerning the mode of access to, and the storage and use of genetic data, particularly as concerns two-sided markets and dynamic consent or dynamic electronic informed consent. This brief overview suggests that, even though the organization and function of these two-sided markets remain open to (...) criticism, dynamic e-IC should be more widely used, especially in France, if only to determine its real effectiveness. (shrink)

The practice and development of modern medicine requires large amounts of data, particularly in the domain of cancer. The future of personalized medicine lies neither with “genomic medicine” nor with “precision medicine”, but with “data medicine”. The establishment of this DM has required far-reaching changes, to establish four essential elements connecting patients and doctors: biobanks, databases, bioinformatic platforms and genomic platforms. The “transformation” of scientific research areas, such as genetics, bioinformatics and biostatistics, into clinical specialties has generated a new vision (...) of care. Molecular tumor boards are one response to these changes and are now providing better access to next-generation sequencing and new cancer treatments to patients with inoperable or metastatic cancers, and those for whom the usual treatment has failed. However, MTB face a crucial ethical challenge: maintaining and improving the trust of patients, clinicians, researchers and industry in academic medical centers supported by private or public funding rather than providing genetic data directly to private companies. We believe that, in this era of DM, appropriate modern digital communication networks will be required to maintain this trust and to improve the organization and effectiveness of the system. There is, therefore, a need to reconsider the form and content of informed consent documents at all academic medical centers and to introduce dynamic and electronic informed consent. (shrink)

This research explores the spread of unreliable information on Facebook during the 2017 French presidential campaign. By analyzing information-sharing behavior on 252 Facebook pages, our study highlights the wide variety of information sources shared by several political communities, notably news published by partisan websites or activist blogs. Our results demonstrate that political parties – particularly, those on the extreme ends of the political spectrum – tend to re-share a large amount of information reflecting the same ideological positions as their own. (...) This trend is amplified by a phenomenon of endo-citation, that is, a “circular circulation” of information between Facebook pages within the same political community. Our results focus on the information practices of the far-right, tracing a clear over-representation of sources that are unreliable or likely to relay disinformation. We argue that this circular transmission of information creates an “unreliable information bubble” that characterizes far-right information-sharing behavior. (shrink)

It is now well-established that physical activity has positive effects on both physical and mental health. However, the influence of organized physical activity on school adaptive behavior of adolescents with disabilities and/or behavioral disorders remains unclear. School behavior adaptation involves the ability to learn, conform to school norms and manage school activities without major behavior conflicts. A cross-sectional study was conducted to test the differences between organized physical activity and non-organized physical activity in an after school program. Eighty Romanian adolescents (...) were recruited and allocated to three groups: with disabilities [Ds;N= 17,Mage= 14.55 years, 12 males and 5 females], with conduct disorders [CDs,N= 21,Mage= 14.52 years 16 males and 5 females], and participants who had not shown signs of conduct disorders or disabilities [as a control group;N= 42,Mage= 14.2 years 20 males and 22 females]. Personality traits, school behavior, and sensorimotor coordination were assessed by using the Eysenck personality questionnaire—junior scale, school in-adaptability questionnaire scale, and Vienna Test System Sport respectively. Multivariate analysis of variance MANOVA and discriminant analysis were used to examine differences between the psychological and sensorimotor coordination outcomes across three groups and three types of physical activity context: organized physical activity, non-organized physical activity, and no physical activity. The findings indicate that not participating in an organized physical activity program results in a reduced level of physical mobility and consequently is associated with maladaptive social and psychological outcomes. Thus, we argued that attending in an organized physical activity program is more beneficial for participants with disabilities and/or behavior disorders, due to an increase in the probability of school integration and development of their motor skills. Clearly more research is needed in order to investigate these effects in neurophysiological levels. (shrink)

Belief and Truth: A Skeptic Reading of Plato explores a Socratic intuition about belief, doxa -- belief is "shameful." In aiming for knowledge, one must aim to get rid of beliefs. Vogt shows how deeply this proposal differs from contemporary views, but that it nevertheless speaks to intuitions we are likely to share with Plato, ancient skeptics, and Stoic epistemologists.

What is the one big idea of Koselleck’s Historik understood as a methodological framework for the attempt to combine a theory of historical times with a theory of historical time? In part (1) of this paper, I criticize the two most basic attempts to understand Koselleck’s one big idea as mistaken because they are exclusively interested either in history (in the singular) or in histories (in the plural) and thus miss the central relevance of structures of repetition (“Wiederholungsstrukturen”) for Koselleck’s (...) Historik. In part (2), I will clarify the rather hidden pre-history, the main ambition, the theoretical context and the substantial content of Koselleck’s concept of structures of repetition in history and language. In part (3), I will discuss four historiographical consequences of Koselleck’s structures of repetition. I will end the paper by observing a remarkable theoretical affinity between Barrington Moore’s search for recurring patterns in the field of sociology and Koselleck’s structures of repetition in history and language. Moore’s work illustrates the historiographical potential of the one big idea of Koselleck’s Historik better than any other work I am aware of. (shrink)

Essays honoring the work of Catholic ethicist James F. Keenan.

Dans cet article, nous livrons une analyse du statut épistémologique de l’hypothèse d’efficience des marchés. Sans juger de sa véracité ou de sa fausseté, nous montrons qu’elle ne peut, en aucun sens rigoureux, être entendue comme une proposition empirique testable. Aucune expérience n’existe permettant de la falsifier irrévocablement. A rebours, nous montrons qu’elle ne peut être entendue que comme une proposition analytique, comme inaugurant un nouveau système de définitions cohérent par lui-même. En cela, la formulation de l’hypothèse d’efficience des marchés (...) a ouvert un nouveau programme de recherche, dont nous mettons en évidence les grandes lignes directrices. (shrink)

Guillaume Collett questions to what extent we can locate Deleuze within the Lacanian School during the late-1960s, prior to Guattari. In so doing, he offers a new, integrated reading of Deleuze's The Logic of Sense by understanding it as a 'psychoanalysis of sense', and gives a new interpretation of Deleuze's conception of philosophy itself. The Psychoanalysis of Sense shows that Deleuze was not merely aware of the debates animating the Lacanian School during the 1960s: he sought to contribute to (...) them. Emphasising his appropriation of the work of post-Lacanian Serge Leclaire, Collett explains how Deleuze constructed a more singular and immanent theory of the linguistic structure of the unconscious - granting the erogenous body a larger structuring role. (shrink)

One way social scientists explain phenomena is by building structural models. These models are explanatory insofar as they manage to perform a recursive decomposition on an initial multivariate probability distribution, which can be interpreted as a mechanism. Explanations in social sciences share important aspects that have been highlighted in the mechanisms literature. Notably, spelling out the functioning the mechanism gives it explanatory power. Thus social scientists should choose the variables to include in the model on the basis of their function (...) in the mechanism. This paper examines the notion of ‘function’ within structural modelling. We argue that ‘functions’ ought to be understood as the theoretical underpinnings of the causes, namely as the role that causes play in the functioning of the mechanism. (shrink)

Malgré l’important renouveau que connaît la théologie naturelle depuis environ un demi-siècle dans le champ de la philosophie de la religion, Charles Taylor soutient que celle-ci appartient à une époque désormais révolue. Cette étude propose de restituer de manière aussi fidèle et précise que possible les raisons de ce verdict. Une telle analyse vise à combler une lacune importante dans la littérature secondaire. Cette lacune tient, d’une part, au fait que Taylor lui-même ne développe jamais ces raisons de façon systématique (...) ; d’autre part, elle tient également au fait que plusieurs commentateurs semblent présupposer qu’un tel argument n’existe pas : Taylor récuserait la théologie naturelle simplement parce qu’elle ne correspond pas à la manière dont il est enclin à justifier ses propres convictions religieuses. (shrink)

Corporate codes of ethics, which have spread in the last decades, have shown a limited ability to foster ethical behaviors. For instance, they have been criticized for relying too much on formal compliance, rather than taking into account sufficiently agents and their moral development, or promoting self-reflexive behaviors. We aim here at showing that a code of ethics in fact has meaning and enables ethical progress when it is interpreted and appropriated with practical wisdom. We explore a model that represents (...) an uncommon organizational code of ethics: the monastic Rule of St. Benedict, written in the sixth century and still used today. Our empirical study—conducted in several monasteries living under this rule—shows that organization members interpret this rule, both hermeneutically and ethically, to adapt it to situations. They also appropriate this rule as a way of life and treat it as a dynamic framework that helps them to follow their purpose within their organization. This exceptional code actually offers an alternative model for practicing codes of ethics, in a virtue-ethical manner, beyond mere compliance with the text. The way in which reflexive and active agents practice the code, both individually and collectively, shapes their organizational experience and fosters their moral development. (shrink)

La réflexion philosophique, dont l'ouverture à l'univers dans lequel nous nous découvrons - avec une acuité proportionnelle à un étonnement renouvelé - n'a pas de limites, n'en est que plus tributaire des sciences et des techniques, des arts et de multiples activités qui régissent plus ou moins fructueusement notre expérience. Or, au sein des sciences humaines, privilégiées pour éclairer une condition que nous ne saurions cesser d'interpréter, peu d'oeuvres du dernier siècle auront enrichi en le précisant notre être-au-monde, comme la (...) théorie linguistique de Gustave Guillaume, assez solitaire, et les recherches multiformes de Jean Piaget - où la psychologie de l'enfant a souvent occulté la visée épistémologique et son enracinement biologique (cf Biologie et connaissance, 1967) et ses prolongements pédagogiques, voire éthiques. Le Cinquantenaire et le Trentenaire de leur disparition appelaient un hommage d'autant plus impératif qu'ils sont restés marginaux ou ignorés dans les milieux philosophiques, malgré la centralité de leurs élucidations. Leur commune orientation génétique et structurale n'ayant suscité aucun échange, pendant la contemporanéité de publications d'un tiers de siècle (1923-1960), mesurer leur complémentarité s'impose d'autant plus. S'ils peuvent aider à repenser la condition humaine, c'est qu'ils auront contribué à dissiper le "mystère de la pensée". L'un cherchant à habiliter les caractères systématique et cinétique des langues, irremplaçables moyens de penser ; l'autre dans un vis-à-vis cognitif et opératoire de Freud, en relavant sur les plans épistémologique et logique, notamment, l'élan révolutionnaire de la seconde modernité, autour de l'évolutionnisme. Mais les thèmes majeurs du constructivisme, du schème et de la symbolisation - et plus largement du temps et du langage - auront sans doute aidé à spécifier les mutations autorisées par la révolution critique. Entre l'Instant du je parle et un décentrement exigible pratiquement (éthique) comme théoriquement (épistémique), c'est bien la condition humaine dans son ensemble qui est concernée. Si repenser cette Condition s'impose en permanence, il importe de ne pas manquer des oeuvres qui, par-delà toute mode, proposent à notre expérience des fondations résistant à d'inéluctables vicissitudes. (shrink)

Vogt puts forward a novel version of the Guise of the Good: the desire to have one's life go well shapes and sustains mid- and small-scale motivations. Her book lays out a non-relativist version of Protagoras's Measure Doctrine and defends a new realism about good human lives.

Unlike in physics, the category of thought experiment is not very common in biology. At least there are no classic examples that are as important and as well-known as the most famous thought experiments in physics, such as Galileo’s, Maxwell’s or Einstein’s. The reasons for this are far from obvious; maybe it has to do with the fact that modern biology for the most part sees itself as a thoroughly empirical discipline that engages either in real natural history or in (...) experimenting on real organisms rather than fictive ones. While theoretical biology does exist and is recognized as part of biology, its role within biology appears to be more marginal than the role of theoretical physics within physics. It could be that this marginality of theory also affects thought experiments as sources of theoretical knowledge. Of course, none of this provides a sufficient reason for thinking that thought experiments are really unimportant in biology. It is quite possible that the common perception of this matter is wrong and that there are important theoretical considerations in biology, past or present, that deserve the title of thought experiment just as much as the standard examples from physics. Some such considerations may even be widely known and considered to be important, but were not recognized as thought experiments. In fact, as we shall see, there are reasons for thinking that what is arguably the single most important biological work ever, Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, contains a number of thought experiments. There are also more recent examples both in evolutionary and non-evolutionary biology, as we will show. Part of the problem in identifying positive examples in the history of biology is the lack of agreement as to what exactly a thought experiment is. Even worse, there may not be more than a family resemblance that unifies this epistemic category. We take it that classical thought experiments show the following characteristics: They serve directly or indirectly in the non-empirical epistemic evaluation of theoretical propositions, explanations or hypotheses. Thought experiments somehow appeal to the imagination. They involve hypothetical scenarios, which may or may not be fictive. In other words, thought experiments suppose that certain states of affairs hold and then try to intuit what would happen in a world where these suppositions are true. We want to examine in the following sections if there are episodes in the history of biology that satisfy these criteria. As we will show, there are a few episodes that might satisfy all three of these criteria, and many more if the imagination criterion is dropped or understood in a lose sense. In any case, this criterion is somewhat vague in the first place, unless a specific account of the imagination is presupposed. There will also be issues as to what exactly “non-empirical” means. In general, for the sake of discussion we propose to understand the term “thought experiment” here in a broad rather than a narrow sense here. We would rather be guilty of having too wide a conception of thought experiment than of missing a whole range of really interesting examples. (shrink)

In this paper, we use an experimental design to compare the performance of elicitation rules for subjective beliefs. Contrary to previous works in which elicited beliefs are compared to an objective benchmark, we consider a purely subjective belief framework. The performance of different elicitation rules is assessed according to the accuracy of stated beliefs in predicting success. We measure this accuracy using two main factors: calibration and discrimination. For each of them, we propose two statistical indexes and we compare the (...) rules’ performances for each measurement. The matching probability method provides more accurate beliefs in terms of discrimination, while the quadratic scoring rule reduces overconfidence and the free rule, a simple rule with no incentives, which succeeds in eliciting accurate beliefs. Nevertheless, the matching probability appears to be the best mechanism for eliciting beliefs due to its performances in terms of calibration and discrimination, but also its ability to elicit consistent beliefs across measures and across tasks, as well as its empirical and theoretical properties. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss the distribution and the interpretation of the temporal suffix -kue in Mbyá, a Guaraní language that is closely related to Paraguayan Guaraní. This suffix is attested both inside noun phrases and inside clauses. Interestingly, its nominal uses give rise to inferences that are unattested in its clausal uses. These inferences were first identified in Paraguayan Guaraní by Tonhauser, who called them the existence property and the change of state property. Tonhauser further argued that these properties (...) are built into the lexical entry of the nominal temporal marker -kue. By contrast, I argue that -kue denotes a relative past tense both in its nominal and clausal uses, and that the existence and change of state properties are pragmatic inferences that arise from the interaction of the literal meaning of -kue with general constraints on the interpretation of noun phrases, notably constraints on the topicality of the time of evaluation of noun phrases. This allows me to maintain a uniform analysis of -kue across its nominal uses and its clausal uses. The analysis of -kue in Mbyá is relevant to a number of current debates on the expression of tense crosslinguistically. Firstly, the existence of relative tenses has sometimes been called into question. Klein notably argues that relative tenses are actually combinations of tense with the perfect aspect. Others have argued that there exist true relative tenses in certain languages. I argue that facts of Mbyá support the latter view. Secondly, Klein famously defined tenses as relations between topic times and the time of utterance. I argue, on the other hand, that relative tenses only denote relations between times, and that the topicality or non-topicality of their temporal arguments depends on their context of use, including their syntactic environment. Thirdly, this paper contributes to debates on the nature and reality of nominal tenses The Oxford handbook of tense and aspect, 2012), by arguing that tense in Mbyá is a genuinely nominal category, in the sense that temporal functional projections are part of the extended projection of the noun phrase. (shrink)

(2012). DEL-sequents for regression and epistemic planning. Journal of Applied Non-Classical Logics: Vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 337-367. doi: 10.1080/11663081.2012.736703.

Dispositional Essentialism, as commonly conceived, consists in the claims that at least some of the fundamental properties essentially confer certain causal-nomological roles on their bearers, and that these properties give rise to the natural modalities. As such, the view is generally taken to be committed to a realist conception of properties as either universals or tropes, and to be thus incompatible with nominalism as understood in the strict sense. Pace this common assumption of the ontological import of Dispositional Essentialism, the (...) aim of this paper is to explore a nominalist version of the view, Austere Nominalist Dispositional Essentialism. The core features of the proposed account are that it eschews all kinds of properties, takes certain predicative truths as fundamental, and employs the so-called generic notion of essence. As I will argue, the account is significantly closer to the core idea behind Dispositional Essentialism than the only nominalist account in the vicinity of Dispositional Essentialism that has been offered so far—Ann Whittle’s Causal Nominalism—and is immune to crucial problems that affect this view. (shrink)

Although Wilhelm Dilthey and Franz Brentano apparently were pursuing roughly the same objective—to offer a description of our mental functions and of their relations to objects—and both called their respective research programs ‘descriptive psychology’, they seem to have used the term to refer to two different methods of psychological research. In this article, I compare analyses of these differences. Against the reading of Orth but also against a possible application of recent relativist accounts of the epistemology of peer disagreement to (...) this case, I argue that their apparent shared objective is not enough to support an understanding of their views as two alternatives within a given historical or scientific context, or as a mutual peer disagreement. I show that the impression of a shared objective can be explained away as stemming from the influence of their teacher Adolf Trendelenburg, and I stress that the case of introspection strongly suggests that an account in terms of peer disagreement is not plausible. Finally, I conclude that the opposition between two traditions, Austrian philosophy and historicism, might be better suited to account for the dispute and its apparent common historical context. (shrink)

The emerging concept of systems medicine (or ‘P4 medicine’—predictive, preventive, personalized and participatory) is at the vanguard of the post-genomic movement towards ‘precision medicine’. It is the medical application of systems biology, the biological study of wholes. Of particular interest, P4 systems medicine is currently promised as a revolutionary new biomedical approach that is holistic rather than reductionist. This article analyzes its concept of holism, both with regard to methods and conceptualization of health and disease. Rather than representing a medical (...) holism associated with basic humanistic ideas, we find a technoscientific holism resulting from altered technological and theoretical circumstances in biology. We argue that this holism, which is aimed at disease prevention and health optimization, points towards an expanded form of medicalization, which we call ‘holistic medicalization’: Each person’s whole life process is defined in biomedical, technoscientific terms as quantifiable and controllable and underlain a regime of medical control that is holistic in that it is all-encompassing. It is directed at all levels of functioning, from the molecular to the social, continual throughout life and aimed at managing the whole continuum from cure of disease to optimization of health. We argue that this medicalization is a very concrete materialization of a broader trend in medicine and society, which we call ‘the medicalization of health and life itself’. We explicate this holistic medicalization, discuss potential harms and conclude by calling for preventive measures aimed at avoiding eventual harmful effects of overmedicalization in systems medicine (quaternary prevention). (shrink)

The Grand Challenges literature brings under its umbrella a wide variety of disjointed phenomena but runs the risk of reinventing the wheel as well as overlooking incremental progress and past work. To avert this, scholars need to (dis)connect (dis)similar issues, build on past research on these issues, and create opportunities for generalizability through theoretical examinations.

ObjectivesFrom a self-determination theory perspective, the purpose of this cross sectional study was to better understand how to motivate hospitalized older adults’ behaviors and test an integrative model of the role of causality orientations and a supportive/controlled environment on basic need satisfaction, motivation for health oriented physical activity, positive and negative affective states, depressive symptoms, apathy, and boredom.MethodsOlder adults in French hospital units completed self-report questionnaires and socio-demographic data were also collected.ResultsPartial least squares path modeling results showed that participants’ autonomy (...) orientation positively associated with the perception of a supportive environment was related to need satisfaction, autonomous motivation for health-oriented physical activity, and high scores on positive affective states. Conversely, participants’ impersonal orientation positively associated with the perception of a controlled environment was related to undermining need satisfaction, controlled motivation for health-oriented physical activity, and amotivation, and high scores on both negative affective states, and boredom.ConclusionThe present results indicate that taking into account personality factors in hospital units can be useful and health professionals should take an interest both in the patients’ causality orientations and the supportive nature of the environment in order to understand better how to motivate patients’ behaviors. The present study points to the need to focus on all motivational dynamics which allow patients’ need satisfaction. (shrink)

InFellow Creatures, Christine Korsgaard claims that human beingsoughtto treat all sentient animals as ends in themselves. However, in this article, I argue that Korgaard's method goes beyond what a coherent constructivist conception allows, and I claim that we should therefore adopt a Humean rather than a Kantian version of constructivism. I believe that such a conception permits us to hold substantial ethical positions about non-human animals without having to compromise our ontological commitments.

RésuméDans Fellow creatures, Christine Korsgaard soutient que les êtres humains auraient l'obligation morale de traiter les animaux sensibles comme des fins en soi. Cependant, cet article tente de démontrer que la méthode korsgaardienne dépasse ce que permet une théorie constructiviste conséquente et soutient que nous devrions opter pour une version humienne plutôt que kantienne du constructivisme. Selon moi, une telle conception permet tout à fait de soutenir des positions éthiques substantielles sur la question animale sans avoir à compromettre ses engagements (...) ontologiques. (shrink)

This book argues that political philosophy is central to early Stoic philosophy, and is deeply tied to the Stoics' conceptions of reason and wisdom. Broad in scope, it explores the Stoics' idea of the cosmic city, their notion of citizen-gods, as well as their account of the law.