In 1990, Vermeerbergen started the first larger-scale corpus study with spontaneous language data from adult signers on the morpho-syntactic aspects of Flemish Sign Language. After this, a number of lexicographic projects, including the collection of a 90-h corpus, led to the launch of the first online bilingual Dutch/VGT—VGT/Dutch dictionary in 2004. Since then, researchers have developed several corpora of variable sizes, with the greatest realization being the VGT Corpus. The main focus of this chapter is twofold. On the one hand (...) the run-up to, the development and the use of the VGT Corpus will be discussed, while on the other hand smaller specific research corpora will be highlighted such as the corpus on early parent-child interaction and the multifocal eye-tracking corpus. The current chapter will discuss the research and community value of the corpora and future directions. Finally, it will elaborate on the need for corpus research, the associated advantages and disadvantages, and the obstacles faced in smaller deaf communities. (shrink)

In this article, we argue that apart from evaluating the causes and the social determinants of health inequalities, an evaluation of the effects of health inequalities is due. For this, we propose the ideal of relational equality as an evaluative framework, and test to what extent health inequalities threaten this ideal of a society of equals. We identify three ways in which they do and argue that these risks are especially great for those lower down the socio-economic strata. We thus (...) conclude that equality in health is instrumental to social justice, and that socio-economic inequalities in health are not only unjust due to their causes but also due to their consequences. We continue to argue that our instrumental approach opens a perspective to mitigate the identified injustices by changing society, rather than reducing inequalities in health, and argue that this is an advantage in the light of the realistic assumption that of the socio-economic health inequalities will persist. The article thus offers a complementary approach to both the evaluation and the mitigation of the injustice of socio-economic inequalities in health. (shrink)

The strong correlation between people’s socioeconomic position and health within high income countries is a well-documented fact. A person’s occupation, income and education level tell us a lot about that person’s prospects on a long and healthy life, such that we can speak of a ‘social gradient in health’, or a ‘socioeconomic health gap’. This association is often perceived to be unjust. Therefore, it is generally thought that governments should aim to reduce socioeconomic health inequalities. However, this idea needs ethical (...) justification, for it is not evident if and why exactly these inequalities are unjust. For instance, are inequalities in health unjust per se? Or because the underlying socioeconomic inequalities are unjust? And does justice require equal health levels, or a minimum level of health? What complicates the issue, is that the width of the health gap, or the steepness of the social gradient, depends on what health measures are used. Overall, the more subjective the measure, the greater the inequalities appear to be. But are all these measures equally morally relevant? This dissertation aims to give a better understanding of these philosophical questions. It does so by investigating the question of what we should understand by health in the first part, after which it addresses the question of how to evaluate socioeconomic health inequalities in the light of justice. The introduction begins with a description of the phenomenon of socioeconomic health inequalities, and how it has been addressed by politicians, epidemiologists and philosophers in the past and today. The chapter continues by formulating the central question of the dissertation – that of which health inequalities should be focused in the light of a concern with social justice. It explicates how this dissertation contributes to answering that question, by discussing the potential relation between the conceptualisation of health and justice evaluations, and by discussing which questions are addressed in each of the following chapters. The chapter 2 addresses the question of how health is conceptualised in the philosophical and public heath literature, and how theoretical concepts of health differ. It proposes to approach health concepts as a Wittgensteinian family of thick concepts and argues that while theories on health generally argue in favour of one specific concept, a comparison of concepts shows that we may need different concepts of health given the variety of health practices. By explicating the differences between five concepts of health, this chapter argues that each captures aspects of health that all seem relevant when we talk and think about health. Classifying these concepts based on their distinctions reveals them as members of a conceptual family: each of the discussed concepts differs from the others in at least one respect and resembles the others in several respects. Moreover, the discussion of the concepts shows that ‘health’ always both describes a condition and values that condition at the same time. Having both descriptive and evaluative dimensions, we can see health concepts as ‘thick concepts’. Given this evaluative dimension, it is important to reflect on the question of what understanding of health guides specific practices. Moreover, the distinctions revealed by the classification can serve as a conceptual toolbox for reflection on the assumptions and purposes of health practices. How such reflection could work is illustrated by a brief exploration of what health aspects are focused upon in three specific health practices. Chapter 3 presents a study into the question of how health is conceptualised by ordinary citizens and to what extent conceptualisations of health differ between socioeconomic groups. By making use of the method of concept mapping, this study analyses how different socioeconomic groups formulate their own answers regarding the question ‘what does health mean to you?’. It presents concept maps of health for three different socioeconomic groups living in the city of Utrecht that reveal that all groups have a multidimensional understanding of health. An interpretation of the concept maps reveals nuanced differences between groups. The multiple aspects of health were also ranked by importance. It appears that each group assigned most importance to mental health. All in all, the study shows that people in lower socioeconomic groups are more likely to show a conceptualisation of health that refers to 1) the absence of health threats, 2) a person within his/her circumstances, 3) the value of functional notions, and 4) an accepting attitude towards life. Chapter 4 addresses the question of what the theoretical and empirical study to concepts of health could imply for health equity practices. It does so by exploring further the suggestions made in chapters 2 and 3. Regarding the question of which health aspects should guide health equity policies, this chapter discusses the question of whether we should primarily look at subjective or objective health measures, and whether a universal or relative standard of health should be central. While justice-related concerns of impartiality and equal treatment may seem to favour an objective perspective and a universal health standard, it appears that we have good reason to account for the subjective perspective as well. It is also argued that a concern for recognition and participatory parity gives room for relative health standards. Th room for relative health standards confronts us with the question of how to deal with mechanisms like adaptive preferences that the concept maps reveal. It proposes a way out, by arguing for society-relative health standards. Chapter 5 examines the question of whether inequalities in health should be evaluated ‘directly’, thus independently of a distribution of their social determinants. It proposes a sufficientarian perspective, such that the central question of evaluation is that of whether everyone is – or can be – healthy enough. By discussing two sufficientarian approaches to health and social justice – by Powers & Faden and by Nussbaum – this chapter distinguishes two ways of setting a threshold level for health. Both approaches appear to provide an unsatisfactory basis for justice evaluations and lead us away from direct evaluation if we try to settle health minima that are less arbitrary. In anticipation to chapters 6 and 7, it is argued that the perspective of sufficient health for relational equality escapes this arbitrariness: compared to that of a decent human life, it better helps to answer both the question of what socioeconomic health inequalities a society is due to avoid, and the question of when socioeconomic health inequalities are unjust considering their consequences. Chapter 6 discusses to what extent Daniels’s theory of health justice provides a satisfactory answer to the question of what health inequalities a society is due to avoid. Daniels proposes an indirect evaluative approach by arguing that we should evaluate socioeconomic health inequalities in the light of Rawls’s principles of justice as fairness. That is, if socioeconomic inequalities are in accordance with fair equality of opportunity and with the difference principle, the corresponding health inequalities would be just. It is shown that the suggestion that Rawls’s principles regulate the social determinants of health neglects that not all social determinants of health belong to society’s basic structure as conceived of by Rawls and are thereby not subjected to the principles of justice. To acknowledge the social mechanisms leading to socioeconomic health inequalities in their full complexity, it is argued that we should broaden our understanding of society’s structure in accordance with Young’s notion of social structural processes. This renders the question of what health inequalities a society is due to avoid into a question of what we can expect from the side of the various actors that uphold the social structures that produce socioeconomic health inequalities. Lastly, it is discussed how a shift to Young’s theory completes the shift to non-ideal theorising that seem already initiated by Daniels, and that with this, the distinction between direct and indirect evaluation dissolves. Chapter 7 discusses to what extent equality in health is of instrumental value for a society of free and equals. It thus takes up the idea proposed in chapter 5, that an evaluation of the consequences of health inequalities is also due. Taking relational equality as an evaluative framework reveals three ways in which inequalities in life expectancy threaten this ideal. That is, via unequal risks to stigmatisation, unequal risks to unemployment and the risk of unequal pension enjoyments. It is thereby shown that these risks are especially great for those lower down the socioeconomic strata. It thus concludes that equality in health is of instrumental value to relational equality. The chapter continues to argue that our instrumental approach opens a new perspective: to mitigate the identified injustices by changing society, rather than by reducing inequalities in health. This is argued to be an advantage in the light of the realistic assumption that of the socioeconomic health inequalities will persist. The paper thus offers a complementary approach to both the evaluation and the mitigation of the injustice of socioeconomic inequalities in health. The discussion chapter summarises the central findings of the analyses of health concepts and discusses questions regarding the philosophical and practical merits of comparing theoretical health concepts, the need for developing new health measures or concepts and the importance or nonsense of studying citizen’s views on health. Repeating this for the dissertation’s second part, the central findings of the chapters on justice evaluation are summarised and followed by a discussion of questions and issues that have remained unaddressed so far. Here, central points of discussion are my take on rules of distribution, the distinction of direct and indirect evaluation, the role of ideal and non-ideal theory, the idea of relational equality, and personal responsibility for health. The chapter concludes by noting that also in the light of justice evaluations, all commonly used health measures are relevant for justice. Therefore, my recommendations for policy and further research entail that inequalities in each of these measures deserve attention by both policymakers and researchers. Specifically, policymakers and researchers should give attention to how exactly each of these health inequalities come about, in such a way that a discussion about the question of who can be assigned responsibility to alleviate them is well-informed; and both should give attention to the effects of health inequalities on the opportunities for people to live on equal standing, in such a way that when these opportunities are diminished, actions can be considered to aim to restore relational equality. (shrink)

The development of paper-based information technologies in the early modern period is a field of enquiry that has lately benefited from extensive studies by intellectual historians and historians o...

We establish the existence uncountably many atoms in the subvariety lattice of the variety of involutive residuated lattices. The proof utilizes a construction used in the proof of the corresponding result for residuated lattices and is based on the fact that every residuated lattice with greatest element can be associated in a canonical way with an involutive residuated lattice.

Ziel des Aufsatzes ist es, das Projekt angewandter interkultureller Philosophie „Briefe über Philosophie weltweit“ vorzustellen. Der Beitrag ist in vier Teile gegliedert. Im ersten Abschnitt werden Anlass und Profil des Projektes vorgestellt. Der „akademische Nomadismus“ der Gegenwart verstärkt die immer schon interkulturelle Verfasstheit der akademischen Praxis und stellt den lebensweltlichen Anlass des Projektes dar, dies in Form von Briefen über die verschiedenen Bedingungen des Philosophierens auch zu reflektieren. Im zweiten Abschnitt wird genauer nach Erfahrungen gefragt, die in den Briefen zum (...) Ausdruck kommen und die wir als „interkulturelle Erfahrungen“ bezeichnen und näher bestimmen wollen. Thema des dritten Abschnitts ist die gewählte Darstellungsform für derartige interkulturelle Erfahrungen, nämlich die Briefform als Medium für Perspektivität. Im vierten Abschnitt machen wir abschließend den Versuch, das Projekt als Form angewandter interkultureller Philosophie zu profilieren. (shrink)

The integration of ethics into the day-to-day work of research and innovation is an important but difficult challenge. However, with the Aachen method for identification, classification and risk analysis of innovation-based problems an approach from an engineering perspective is presented that enables the integration of ethical, legal and social implications into the day-to-day work of R&I practitioners. AMICAI appears in particular capable of providing a procedural guidance for R&I practitioners based on a method established in engineering science, breaking down the (...) object of consideration into partial aspects and prioritizing the innovation-based problems in dependence of potential risk. This enables the user to apply AMICAI continuously during all stages of the research and development process and to analyze and choose between certain sociotechnical alternatives. In this way, problems that affect ethical, legal, and social aspects can be understood, reflected and considered in the mostly technically focused R&D process. The paper gives a general guidance about AMICAI by describing principles and assumptions, providing the steps of analysis and application aids, giving an example application, explaining the necessary adjustments of AMICAI compared to the methodical basis of failure mode, effects, and criticality analysis and discussing the advantages and limits. AMICAI’s simple applications can stimulate interdisciplinary cooperation in the R&D process and be a starting point for the development of an “open RRI risk analysis platform” allowing society to evaluate innovation-based problems. (shrink)

Taking as a point of departure the thesis that philosophical content and stylistic form are internally related to each other, we explore in our text the possibilities enabled by the literary form of the letter. We begin with a brief description of the current situation of the academic philosophy around the world characterized by international migrations of thinkers and thoughts. In the second section, we highlight the importance of the literary form of the letter in the current background dominated by (...) the canonical format of the paper. In the third and fourth sections we focus on the main features and current use of this literary form and examine its possibilities for philosophy. In the final section, we render plausible our thesis examining with different examples how is possible to write letters about philosophy and to do philosophy in and through letters. (shrink)

What is it to make an error in the identification of a named taxonomic group? In this article we argue that the conditions for being in error about the identity of taxonomic groups through their names have a history, and that the possibility of committing such errors is contingent on the regime of institutions and conventions governing taxonomy and nomenclature at any given point in time. More specifically, we claim that taxonomists today can be in error about the identity of (...) taxonomic groups in a way that Carl Linnaeus, who is routinely cited as the “founder” of modern taxonomy and nomenclature, simply could not be. Starting from a remarkable recent study into Linnaeus’s naming of Elephasmaximus that led to the discovery of a nomenclatural error by him, we reconsider what it could mean to discover that Linnaeus misidentified a biological taxon in applying his taxon names. Through a further case study in Linnaean botany, we show that his practices of applying names in taxonomic revisions reveal a take on determining “which taxon is which” that is strikingly different from that of contemporary taxonomists. Linnaeus, we argue, adopted a practice-based, hands-on concept of taxa as “nominal spaces” that could continue to represent the same taxon even if all its former members had been reallocated to other taxa. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Introduction The Gene in Classical Genetics The Gene in Molecular Genetics The Gene in Evolution and Development Conclusion: Genes, Genomics, and Reduction Acknowledgement References Further Reading.

Name der Zeitschrift: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie Jahrgang: 62 Heft: 2 Seiten: 318-320.

In this letter from Ireland I give a brief introduction into the history of academic philosophy in Ireland and a schematic overview of the current philosophical landscape. I point out some advantages and some disadvantages of practicing philosophy in Ireland against Germany and put those into a general historical and cultural context. Finally, I provide key information for anybody interested in finding out more about philosophy in Ireland.

Understanding how scientific activities use naming stories to achieve disciplinary status is important not only for insight into the past, but for evaluating current claims that new disciplines are emerging. In order to gain a historical understanding of how new disciplines develop in relation to these baptismal narratives, we compare two recently formed disciplines, systems biology and genomics, with two earlier related life sciences, genetics and molecular biology. These four disciplines span the twentieth century, a period in which the processes (...) of disciplinary demarcation fundamentally changed from those characteristic of the nineteenth century. We outline how the establishment of each discipline relies upon an interplay of factors that include paradigmatic achievements, technological innovation, and social formations. Our focus, however, is the baptism stories that give the new discipline a founding narrative and articulate core problems, general approaches and constitutive methods. The highly plastic process of achieving disciplinary identity is further marked by the openness of disciplinary definition, tension between technological possibilities and the ways in which scientific issues are conceived and approached, synthesis of reductive and integrative strategies, and complex social interactions. The importance – albeit highly variable – of naming stories in these four cases indicates the scope for future studies that focus on failed disciplines or competing names. Further attention to disciplinary histories could, we suggest, give us richer insight into scientific development. (shrink)

We invite systematic consideration of the metaphors of cycles and circulation as a long-term theme in the history of the life and environmental sciences and medicine. Ubiquitous in ancient religious and philosophical traditions, especially in representing the seasons and the motions of celestial bodies, circles once symbolized perfection. Over the centuries cyclic images in western medicine, natural philosophy, natural history and eventually biology gained independence from cosmology and theology and came to depend less on strictly circular forms. As potent ‘canonical (...) icons’, cycles also interacted with representations of linear and irreversible change, including arrows, arcs, scales, series and trees, as in theories of the Earth and of evolution. In modern times life cycles and reproductive cycles have often been held to characterize life, in some cases especially female life, while human efforts selectively to foster and disrupt these cycles have harnessed their productivity in medicine and agriculture. But strong cyclic metaphors have continued to link physiology and climatology, medicine and economics, and biology and manufacturing, notably through the relations between land, food and population. From the grand nineteenth-century transformations of matter to systems ecology, the circulation of molecules through organic and inorganic compartments has posed the problem of maintaining identity in the face of flux and highlights the seductive ability of cyclic schemes to imply closure where no original state was in fact restored. More concerted attention to cycles and circulation will enrich analyses of the power of metaphors to naturalize understandings of life and their shaping by practical interests and political imaginations. (shrink)

Although the cell is commonly addressed as the unit of life, historians and philosophers have devoted relatively little attention to this concept in comparison to other fundamental concepts of biology such as the gene or species. As a partial remedy to this neglect, we introduce the cell as a major point of connection between various disciplinary approaches, epistemic strategies, technological vectors and overarching biological processes such as metabolism, growth, reproduction and evolution. We suggest that the role of the cell as (...) a nexus forms the basis for a new philosophical and historical appreciation of cell biology. This perspective focuses less on the cell as a well-defined, stable object and places more emphasis on its role as a mediator of fundamental biological processes. (shrink)

Whereas theories on health generally argue in favor of one specific concept, we argue that, given the variety of health practices, we need different concepts of health. We thus approach health concepts as a Wittgensteinian family of thick concepts. By discussing five concepts of health offered by theory, we argue that all capture something that seems relevant when we talk and think about health. Classifying these concepts reveals their family resemblances: each of these concepts differs from the others in at (...) least one respect and resembles the others in several respects. Moreover, our classification shows that “health” always both describes a condition and evaluates that condition at the same time. Having both descriptive and evaluative dimensions, we can see health concepts as “thick concepts.” It is because of this evaluative dimension that it is important to reflect on the question of what understanding of health guides specific practices. We show that the distinctions revealed by our classification can serve as a conceptual toolbox for reflection on the assumptions and purposes of particular health practices. Finally, we illustrate how such reflection could work out by briefly exploring three specific health practices. (shrink)

Bioethics, Volume 36, Issue 5, Page 597-604, June 2022.

Carina Fourie and Annette Rid, eds. What is Enough? Sufficiency, Justice, and Health. New York, Oxford University Press, 2017. 336 p.

Recent simulation studies have pointed to the higher power of the test for the mediated effect vs. the test for the total effect, even in the presence of a direct effect. This has motivated applied researchers to investigate mediation in settings where there is no evidence of a total effect. In this paper we provide analytical insight into the circumstances under which higher power of the test for the mediated effect vs. the test for the total effect can be expected (...) in the absence of a direct effect. We argue that the acclaimed power gain is somewhat deceptive and comes with a big price. On the basis of the results, we recommend that when the primary interest lies in mediation only, a significant test for the total effect should not be used as a prerequisite for the test for the indirect effect. However, because the test for the indirect effect is vulnerable to bias when common causes of mediator and outcome are not measured or not accounted for, it should be evaluated in a sensitivity analysis. (shrink)

Ao longo de sua trajetória filosófica, Kant aprofundou e esclareceu os conceitos de vontade e arbítrio. Ambos os conceitos são fundamentais para a compreensão da possibilidade da liberdade, seja ela interna ou externa. O filósofo racional usa os conceitos de Wille e Willkür desde a Kritik der reinen Vernunft, mas será apenas na obra tardia da Metaphysik der Sitten que os conceitos ganharam precisão semântica dentro do sistema da metafisica da liberdade. Em virtude disso, iremos percorrer as obras críticas (...) kantianas desde a Kritik der reinen Vernunft até a Metaphysik der Sitten para verificar as “diferentes” formulações dos conceitos vontade e arbítrio e, finalmente, considerar aquela que melhor se afigura plausível consoante uma leitura sistemática da obra de Kant. (shrink)

Wittgenstein betont ständig den kategorialen Unterschied zwischen dem Willen und dem Wunsch. Der Wunsch gehört zur kausalen, empirischen Vorgängern der Handlung, der Wille aber gehört zur Handlung selbst als sein logisch interner Aspekt, der die Handlungen als ein Tun darstellt, das nur im Kontext von Sprachspielen und anderen Handlungen "existiert". In den Tagebüchern und im Tractatus wird der Wille auch als der Träger des Ethischen bestimmt, später wird ethische Aspekt des Willens (bzw. der willentlichen Handlung) weniger betont, obwohl (...) implizit anwesend. Der Willensaspekt der Handlung drückt sich durch verschiedene intentionalen Zustände aus, die sich grammatisch-intern mit den Gründen der Handlungen verbinden, der Wunsch dagegen stellt ein empirisches Phänomen dar. Die Wünsche, die dabei auch auftreten können, können zwar Ursachen oder Gründe der Handlung sein, doch nur in der Verbindung mit den darauffolgenden willkürlichen Handlungen, nicht per se. (shrink)

In [16], Peterzil and Steinhorn proved that if a group G definable in an o-minimal structure is not definably compact, then G contains a definable torsion-free subgroup of dimension 1. We prove here a p-adic analogue of the Peterzil–Steinhorn theorem, in the special case of abelian groups. Let G be an abelian group definable in a p-adically closed field M. If G is not definably compact then there is a definable subgroup H of dimension 1 which is not definably compact. (...) In a future paper we will generalize this to non-abelian G. (shrink)

Four studies measured or manipulated beliefs in free will to illuminate how such beliefs are linked to other aspects of personality. Study 1 showed that stronger belief in free will was correlated with more gratitude, greater life satisfaction, lower levels of perceived life stress, a greater sense of self-efficacy, greater perceived meaning in life, higher commitment in relationships, and more willingness to forgive relationship partners. Study 2 showed that the belief in free will was a stronger predictor of life satisfaction, (...) meaning in life, gratitude, and self-efficacy than either locus of control or implicit person theory. Study 3 showed that experimentally manipulating disbelief in free will caused a reduction in the perceived meaningfulness of life. Study 4 found that inducing a stronger belief in free will caused people to set more meaningful goals for themselves. The possible concern that believers in free will simply claim all manner of positive traits was contradicted by predicted null finding.. (shrink)

In den Anfängen seiner Philosophie äußerte sich Descartes über den epistemologischen Stellenwert des Willens nur allgemein. Nach Descartes hat Gott dem menschlichen Geist bereits die ersten Ideen gegeben, damit er die ebenfalls von Gott geschaffene physische Welt überhaupt wahrnehmen kann. Für ihn ist die dazu zuständige menschliche Fakultät unter anderem der Wille. Angesichts der immer wieder gemachten Erfahrung, dass die Menschen Irrtümer begehen, muss sich Descartes in der Fortsetzung seiner Philosophie mit der Frage auseinandersetzen, wie sich der Wille (...) irrt und warum. Für die cartesianische Erklärung des ersten Teils der Frage ist entscheidend, wie der Geist im Zusammenwirken des Willens und des Verstandes den Erkenntnisakt vollzieht. Als Gründe der Irrtümer nennt Descartes die Grenzen des menschlichen Verstandes sowie die Unaufmerksamkeit der Menschen. Ob der Wille insbesondere bei der genannten Unaufmerksamkeit frei ist, sodass dessen Inhaber zur Verantwortung gezogen werden kann, ist eine weitere Frage, zu der Descartes Stellung beziehen muss. In den Meditationen entwickelt er eine Freiheitslehre, die jedoch auf Einwände seitens Hobbes stößt. Später in zwei Briefen an Mesland modifiziert er seine Freiheitslehre. Die Freiheit, die er hierbei annimmt, ist für Descartes hinreichend, um die Verantwortlichkeit des Menschen für sein Fehlverhalten anzunehmen, auch wenn Gott selbst den Menschen mit einem Willensvermögen erschaffen hat bzw. die Ausübung dieser Freiheit duldet. (shrink)