My concern here is to motivate some theses in the philosophy of mind concerning the interpersonal character of intentions. I will do so by investigating aspects of shared agency. The main point will be that when acting together with others one must be able to act directly on the intention of another or others in a way that is relevantly similar to the manner in which an agent acts on his or her own intentions. What exactly this means will become (...) clearer once we understand what it is to act directly on one’s own intentions. But I take it to be a fundamental assumption of the prevailing individualism of the theory of action— one at the core of its conception of the separateness of individuals— that one person cannot act directly on another’s intention. I agree that there is an important way in which we are or can be separate and autonomous thinkers and agents. But the way the individualist tries to capture this separateness is misguided. (shrink)

The relation between the notions of (medical) invasiveness and (actual or potential) harm has not been systematically discussed nor theoretically grounded, despite its importance to clinical-ethical practice. This paper aims to clarify the notion of invasiveness beyond the traditional notion of invasiveness as breaking skin or inserting mechanical objects into the body. The traditional notion of invasiveness is challenged by counterexamples. Three approaches to the notion of disorder applied here are: deviation from what is common; deviation from what is considered (...) ideal; and disruption of self-organization. Assuming that more extreme measures are related to more harm, all three approaches to the notion of disorder suggest that invasiveness is proportional if not identical to harm, and show no clear relation to the traditional notion of invasiveness. In conclusion, the notion of invasiveness may best be eliminated from medical terminology, replacing it with a detailed understanding of the notion of harm. (shrink)

This study examines the ends of medical intervention and argues that mainstream contemporary medicine assumes that appropriate ends may be discovered (i.e., naturalism), rather than created or decided upon (i.e., conventionalism). The essay then applies these considerations to the problem of the demarcation of the normal from the pathological. I argue that the common formulations of this dispute commit a fallacy, as they characterize the "normal" as a state of the organism and not as an ongoing process within it. Such (...) a process may be characterized as self-creation and self-repair. Such considerations support the conclusion that normality may be regarded as a regulative idea, rather than as an end-state, and as part of the ends of medical intervention, depending upon choice and context. (shrink)

Dialogical ethics are a procedural alternative to substantive ethics such as consequentialism, deontology, principlism, casuistry, virtue ethics and care ethics. Dialogical ethics are procedural in that they do not establish goods in advance, unlike substantive ethics, but rather determine goods through a procedure enacted by the actual parties involved (although some substantive notion of justice may still be required); and they are dialogical in that the procedure is that of dialogue, involving both empathic critical discussion and negotiation. A fundamental tenet (...) of dialogical ethics may be the use of appropriate rules of order regulating dialogue among the parties involved. Some of the central characteristics of such rules of order are that they are reciprocally regulated by dialogue, that they override other ethical considerations, and that they institute empathic critical discussion and negotiation within the ethical dialogue. Dialogical bioethics are the application of dialogical ethics to ethical problems in medicine. The approach of dialogical bioethics has proven fruitful for resolving bioethical problems such as that of medical futility, where approaches of substantive ethics have reached an impasse. There is room for further study of special challenges within dialogical bioethics, such as the incompetence of some involved parties, conflicts of interests of third parties, and the cost-effectiveness of this ethical approach. (shrink)

Biological psychiatry has been dominated by a psychopharmacologically-driven neurotransmitter dysfunction paradigm. The objective of this paper is to explore a reductionist assumption underlying this paradigm, and to suggest an improvement on it. The methods used are conceptual analysis with a comparative approach, particularly using illustrations from the history of both biological psychiatry and molecular biology. The results are that complete reduction to physicochemical explanations is not fruitful, at least in the initial stages of research in the medical and life sciences, (...) and that an appropriate (non-reducible) integrative principle - addressing a property of the whole system under study - is required for each domain of research. This is illustrated in Pauling's use of a topological integrative principle for the discovery of the functioning of proteins and in Watson and Crick's use of the notion of a genetic code as an integrative principle for the discovery of the structure of genes. The neurotransmitter dysfunction paradigm addresses single molecules and their neural pathways, yet their interactions within the CNS as a whole seem most pertinent to mental disorders such as schizophrenia. The lack within biological psychiatry of an integrative principle addressing a property of the CNS as a whole may be responsible for the empirical failure of orthomolecular psychiatry, as well as for the central role that serendipity has played in the study of mental disorders, which is dominated by the neurotransmitter paradigm. The conclusion is that research in biological psychiatry may benefit from using, at least initially, some integrative principle(s) addressing a property of the CNS as a whole, such as connectionism or a hierarchical notion. (shrink)

Informed consent to breaking (or waiving) bad news is an important yet neglected topic. It is distinct from informed consent to diagnosis and to treatment, and may be logically and ethically sound, provided patients are competent and that no considerable harm may be caused to others by breaking or waiving bad news to patients. This requires a differential assessment procedure in order to balance patient autonomy, benefit and justice towards others, preferably exploring patients’ values, expectations and needs with them, so (...) that an acceptable decision can be made on whether to act on their consent to breaking or waiving bad news, or to ignore it and act on informed consent by proxy. Future study should attempt to provide a detailed characterization of procedures for attaining informed consent to breaking or waiving bad news, and to test their success in establishing ethically sound health care. (shrink)

Bioethics uses various theories, methods and institutions for its decision-making. Lately, a dialogical, i.e., dialogue-based, approach has been argued for in bioethics. The aim of this paper is to explore some of the decision-making processes that may be involved in this dialogical approach, as well as related pitfalls that may have to be addressed in order for this approach to be helpful, particularly in clinical ethics. Using informal logic, an analysis is presented of the notion of dialogue and of the (...) stages of dialogical decision-making, and then processes and related pitfalls associated with these stages in the context of clinical ethics are examined. The results of this exploration are expected to facilitate the implementation and empirical testing of dialogical bioethics. (shrink)

Most of the early proofs of the decidability or completeness of certain mathematical theories were based on the method of eliminations of quantifiers. Various more recent results on completeness were obtained independently of such procedures. However, it is shown in the present paper that, conversely, the completeness of a mathematical theory will in certain circumstances entail the existence of an elimination method. The proof involves the application of the extended first ε‐theorem of Hilbert‐Bernays.ZusammenfassungDie meisten früheren Beweise der Vollständigkeit oder Entscheidbarkeit (...) gewisser mathematischer Theorien benutzten die sogenannte Quantoren‐eliminierungsmethode. Dagegen sind einige neuere Ergebnisse über Voll‐ständigkeit unabhängig von diesem Verfahren. Es ist deshalb von Interesse festzustellen, dass umgekehrt die Vollständigkeit einer mathematischen Theorie unter Umständen die Existenz einer Eliminierungsmethode fürdiese Theorie nach sich zieht. Der Beweis benutzt das erweiterte erste ε‐Theorem von Hilbert‐Bernays.SommaireBeaucoup de démonstrations concernant la complétude de certaines théories mathématiques, ou concernant l'existence d'un procédé de décision pour une telle théorie, sont basées sur des méthodes d'élimination de quantificateurs. Or, il y a des résultats plus récents sur la complétude de certaines théories qui ne dépendent pas de telles méthodes d'élimination. Toutefois on démontre ici que la complétude d'une théorie mathématique entraîne sous certaines conditions l'existence d'une méthode d'élimination. Au cours de la démonstration on se sert d'un des théorèmes‐ε de Hilbert‐Bernays. (shrink)

This article aims to clarify the notion of a psychiatric disability. The article uses conceptual analysis, examining and applying established definitions of (general) disability to psychiatric disabilities. This analysis reveals that disability as inability to perform according to expectations or norms is related to impairment as deviation from the (statistical) norm, while disability as inability to achieve (personal) goals is related to impairment as deviation from the (personal) ideal. These two views of impairment and disability are distinct from the self-organization (...) view of impairment as disrupted self-creation or disrupted self-repair and of disability as disrupted whole person self-compensation (in relation to an impairment). All these three views of disability pertain to psychiatric disability. Although there is nothing necessarily psychiatric about psychiatric disability other than the psychiatric impairment related to it, the life course and life circumstances typical of many people with (severe) psychiatric disorders may lead to disability and may thus confer some (psychiatric) specificity on this disability. This analysis may facilitate research on specific psychiatric disabilities and a broader scope for psychiatric rehabilitation. (shrink)

This article will cover the role of difference in the development of the concept of Ereignis. Despite Heidegger’s insistence on the supremacy identity has over difference, this piece will try and locate the persistent rumor that difference evokes in his works and its crystalization points in Ereignis, analyzing how Heidegger sometimes sees his very self living inside the disruption that difference implies.

Mabel Cooper and Gloria Ferris lived in St Lawrence's Hospital one of the large learning disability institutions which were built round the edges of London. In this paper, Mabel and Gloria share their memories of three nurses at St Lawrence's, supported by Jane Abraham and in this process reveal a number of ethical issues that remain relevant today.

This chapter explores the concepts of ethnic identity, ethnogenesis, ethnonationalism, nationalism and multiculturalism, linking them to a critical analysis of the selective revival of the past. In particular, it looks at the meanings of the concept of ethnonationalism, and at its historical origins, in terms of how it relates to the history of nation building and national culture building, which ethnonationalism represents. Drawing on comparative ethnographic analysis, the chapter examines two opposite processes; the ways in which new ethnic groups are (...) created through a selective reading of the past, and the way in which larger polities are imposed on very different ethnic groups. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Causal Inference and Justification The Traditional View: Skepticism and Unreflective Inference Causal Inference is not always Immediate and Unreflective Reflective Causal Inference What was Hume arguing in Treatise 1.3.6? The Skeptical Reading The Anti‐rationalist Reading The Causal/Explanatory Reading (1) The Causal/Explanatory Reading (2) Notes References and further reading.

Much of what Hume calls probable reasoning is deliberate and reflective. Since there are aspects to Hume’s psychology that tempt some commentators to think, on the contrary, that for Hume all such reasoning is simple and immediate, I will be concerned to emphasize Hume’s recognition of the sophisticated sort of probable reasoning (section I). Though some of the details of my case may be new, the overall point of this section should not be news to recent scholarship. But once we (...) recognize that this reflective and deliberate reasoning constitutes a significant portion of all probable reasoning, it becomes legitimate to ask how Hume accommodates this reasoning in his psychology, his ‘science of man.’ I believe that .. (shrink)

BackgroundEthics consultations are established in contemporary health care. Informal ethics consultations often occur and are possibly beneficial, yet they have not been empirically studied. We sought to describe features of informal ethics consultations and to identify facilitators and disruptors of patient participation in such ethics consultations.MethodsWe used a mixed methods (quantitative and qualitative) evaluation design and conveniently sampled 64 sequential informal ethics consultations over a period of 3 years in two academic health care centers in one city in Canada. Data (...) were collected by the two participating ethicists. We used statistical description for the quantitative data and thematic analysis for the qualitative data.ResultsPatients participated in only two (3%) of the informal ethics consultations. Factors that disrupted patient participation in ethics consultations were related to patients’ issues (mental impairments), family issues (family withholding information from the patient), and team members’ issues (efficiency considerations).ConclusionInformal ethics consultations may be used for ethics capacity building of health care providers rather than for engagement with addressed patients. Further research on informal ethics consultations is required, including in different sites. (shrink)

abstract Ethicists such as Peter Singer argue that consciousness and self‐consciousness are the principal considerations in discussing the use of animals by humans, such as in medical experiments. This paper raises an additional consideration to factor into this ethical discussion. Ethics deal with the intentional impact of subjects on each other. This assumes a meta‐representational ability of subjects to represent states of mind of others, which may be termed other‐consciousness. The moral weight of other‐consciousness is manifest in the notion of (...) responsibility, where humans lacking in other‐consciousness (such as individuals with autism) may not be held responsible for their harmful actions towards others. As responsibility implies not only duties but also rights and more generally high moral status, it follows that other‐consciousness grants high moral status, other things being equal — recognizing that other factors grant moral status too. Other‐consciousness also increases the capacity for suffering, both due to increased freedom (and consequently increased possibility of restriction of freedom) and to increased empathy (with suffering of others). Hence, the more an animal is other‐conscious, the more it deserves high moral status and the more it can suffer, other things being equal, and consequently, the less it should be used for human purposes. Further study is required to elucidate to what extent animals used by humans, such as in medical experiments, particularly primates and other highly evolved mammals, are other‐conscious. (shrink)

Deviant forms of human thought may provide insight into epistemic standards, such as rationality. A comparative analysis of paranoia and reinforced dogmatism suggests that reinforced dogmatism, such as pseudo-science a-la-Popper, demonstrates a primary epistemic lack of critical rationality, that is, of testability, whereas paranoia demonstrates a lack of range of alternative statements leading secondarily to a lack of testability. This reflects the importance to both epistemology and psychiatry of epistemic standards in addition to testability, such as relevance to problems, and (...) emphasizes the distinction of the context of introduction from the contexts of discovery and of justification. Key Words: context of introduction • paranoia • reinforced dogmatism • relevance • testability. (shrink)

Contemporary biological psychiatry is in a seemingly inchoate state. I assert that this state of biological psychiatry is due to its violation of an epistemological criterion of rationality, i.e., the relevance criterion; that is, contemporary biological psychiatry is irrational as it adopts a conception irrelevant to the psychobiological domain. This conception is mechanistic. The irrationality of biological psychiatry is manifest as the dominance of neurochemical explanations of psychopharmacological correlations, resulting in predictive sterility and, correspondingly, in the dominance of serendipity. I (...) suggest a rationalization of biological psychiatry through a conception relevant to the psychobiological domain. This conception is hierarchical. Keywords: criterion of relevance, epistemology, hierarchical conception, mechanistic conception, rationality CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Será tarea del pensamiento crítico recuperar la imagen para un discurso de la resistencia como un discurso efectivo frente a la inoperancia del objeto artístico difuso. A esto debe convocar al análisis crítico de la imagen hegemonizada por la superficie-referente. La radicalidad de dicha tarea debe buscar sus fuentes en el desplazamiento constante hacia la descripción de lo opaco en la estrategia representacional de una superficie-referente para la instalación del objeto fascista estetizante. Dicha radicalidad debe recuperar conceptualmente el desmantelamiento crítico (...) para la reapropiación de la imagen, de lo visual; debe desactivar la radicalidad de lo espectacular. Este análisis de la superficie-referente en la retórica radical del objeto fascista representacional es la tarea necesaria para situar adecuadamente una crítica que se distancie de dicha retórica que no hace más que tornar al objeto representado en un objeto estetizante y fascista en su exceso de real. La resistencia debe centrarse en el análisis permanente de una imagen en constante readecuación al interior de la lógica global del capitalismo. Cualquier nueva articulación de las humanidades debe atender, primero que nada, a la pregunta por cuál es el estatuto de lo visual en dicha lógica antes de emprender cualquier definición de cómo se deben conformar los discursos de resistencia. Es tarea e intento de este trabajo situar la descripción de las estrategias de la imagen en tiempos de su hiper- reproductibilidad- técnica antes de cualquier replanteamiento de las humanidades, esto para comprender cuáles son propiamente las retóricas de lo radical en el capitalismo cultural. (Párrafo extraído del texto a modo de resumen). (shrink)

Abraham Pais's Subtle Is the Lord was a publishing phenomenon: a mathematically sophisticated exposition of the science and the life of Albert Einstein that reached a huge audience and won an American Book Award. Reviewers hailed the book as "a monument to sound scholarship and graceful style", "an extraordinary biography of an extraordinary man", and "a fine book". In this groundbreaking new volume, Pais undertakes a history of the physics of matter and of physical forces since the discovery of (...) x-rays. The book attempts to relate not only what has happened over the last hundred years but why it happened the way it did, what it was like for those scientists involved, and how what at the time may have seemed a series of bizarre or unrelated events, now with hindsight emerges as a logical sequence of events. Pais, a noted physicist, was personally involved in many of the developments he describes, and thus Inward Bound, like his earlier book, is filled with unique insights into the world of big and small physics. Between 1895 and 1983, the period he covers, the smallest distances explored have shrunk a hundred millionfold, Pais notes. Along this incompletely traveled "road inward," scientists have established markers that later generations will rank among the principal monuments of the twentieth century. In alternating technical and nontechnical sections, this magisterial survey richly conveys what has been discovered about the constituents of matter, the laws to which they are subject, and the forces that act on them. But the advances have certainly not come smoothly. The book shows that these have been times of progress and stagnation, of order and chaos, of clarity and confusion, of belief and incredulity, of the conventional and the bizarre; also of revolutionaries and conservatives, of science by individuals and by consortia, of little gadgets and big machines, and of modest funds and big money. About the Author: Abraham Pais is Detlev W. Bronk Professor of Physics at the Rockefeller University. The author of the prizewinning biography of Einstein now undertakes a history of modern physics. (shrink)

RESUMEN El presente estudio está dirigido a establecer coincidencias entre el pensamiento de José Martí y de Carlos Marx en el terreno filosófico. Ambos representan los más altos exponentes del saber filosófico y humanista de la cultura europea y latinoamericana del siglo XIX, respectivamente, con un alcance genuinamente universal. No fue objetivo en modo alguno convertir a Martí en marxista, del mismo modo que sería absurdo afiliar a Marx a las ideas y las concepciones martianas. Sin embargo, no es posible (...) dejar de subrayar la profundidad del ideario martiano en el terreno filosófico, político, social y económico y sus aproximaciones a las concepciones marxistas o al socialismo científico. ABSTRACT The present study is directed to establish coincidences between the thought of José Martí and Carlos Marx in the philosophical area. Both are represented by the highest exponents of the philosophical and humanist knowledge of the European and Latin-American culture of the 19th century, respectively, with an authentically universal scope. It was not objective in any way to turn Martí into Marxist, in the same way that it would be absurd to affiliate Marx to the ideas and the Martí´s conceptions. Nevertheless, it is not possible to stop underlining the depth of the Martí´s ideology in the philosophical, political, social and economic area and his approaches to the Marxist conceptions or to the scientific socialism. (shrink)

El objetivo del artículo es operacionalizar teóricamente la complementariedad significativa, de tres niveles de significación social (representaciones sociales, imaginarios y mitologías), a través de la construcción discursiva en la prensa alternativa digital chilena. A nivel metodológico, se aplica el análisis de contenido cualitativo, analizando dos notas de prensa pertenecientes a El Desconcierto y El Mostrador, haciendo alusión a la temática de la Marcha más Grande de Chile acaecida durante el Estallido Social de 2019. En términos de hallazgos y conclusiones se (...) evidencia a nivel teórico y operativo la estrecha dialéctica y complementariedad entre las tres nociones teóricas de significación mencionadas. (shrink)

El contacto del filósofo danés Søren Kierkegaard con el concepto de tolerancia está condicionado por el uso propiamente moderno del término. Esta noción encontró su camino hacia Dinamarca a través de N. F. S. Grundtvig, una de las principales figuras del contexto intelectual de Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard se aleja de la tolerancia de corte indiferente que defiende Grundtvig, pero también rechaza una intolerancia violenta y coercitiva. En este marco, el objetivo de este artículo es bosquejar el lugar que ocupa la tolerancia (...) en el pensamiento cristiano de Kierkegaard y la contribución que puede significar para repensar las relaciones intersubjetivas y sociales. (shrink)

El debate actual en torno al transhumanismo hace pertinente tener en cuenta el pensamiento de Foucault. Tras la crítica al humanismo moderno, el último Foucault da pie para pensar un «humanismo otro» al servicio de esa «vida otra» que por razón de dignidad y anhelos de autorrealización la filosofía propone como tarea suya irrenunciable. El coraje o audacia para la verdad, pieza clave en su concepción de una «filosofía militante», permite a su vez replantear la tarea de la crítica en (...) la opinión pública de una cultura digital, teniendo en cuenta posibilidades y riesgos de la civilización tecnológica en la época del «big data» y la inteligencia artificial. (shrink)