In the industrialized countries university research and state-financed research are increasingly evaluated from the point of view of their contribution to technology transfer, industrial innovation, and the competitiveness of national industries. Political debates on the viability of orienting basic research toward practical applications are paralleled by discussions, among social scientists, about the risks and opportunities of political direction over science. These debates are the frame of reference for this study, which analyzes the differences between basic and applied research, their correlates (...) and consequences, in high-temperature superconductor research in the Federal Republic of Germany. It will be shown that basic and applied research are fundamentally different in their social organization, their research goals, and their research strategies. These differences are in contrast to the call of science policy for more intense interaction and assimilation. Nevertheless, there are conditions under which basic or applied re searchers will partially follow "foreign" orientations and strategies. These conditions may, in part, be shaped by policy decisions. (shrink)

Dispositions and tendencies feature significantly in the biomedical domain and therefore in representations of knowledge of that domain. They are not only important for specific applications like an infectious disease ontology, but also as part of a general strategy for modelling knowledge about molecular interactions. But the task of representing dispositions in some formal ontological systems is fraught with several problems, which are partly due to the fact that Description Logics can only deal well with binary relations. The paper will (...) discuss some of the results of the philosophical debate about dispositions, in order to see whether the formal relations needed to represent dispositions can be broken down to binary relations. Finally, we will discuss problems arising from the possibility of the absence of realizations, of multi-track or multi-trigger dispositions and offer suggestions on how to deal with them. (shrink)

Statements about the behavior of biochemical entities (e.g., about the interaction between two proteins) abound in the literature on molecular biology and are increasingly becoming the targets of information extraction and text mining techniques. We show that an accurate analysis of the semantics of such statements reveals a number of ambiguities that have to be taken into account in the practice of biomedical ontology engineering: Such statements can not only be understood as event reporting statements, but also as ascriptions of (...) dispositions or tendencies that may or may not refer to collectives of interacting molecules or even to collectives of interaction events. (shrink)

During the COVID-19 pandemic, universities had to shift from face-to-face to emergency remote education. Students were forced to study online, with limited access to facilities and less contact with peers and teachers, while at the same time being exposed to more autonomy. This study examined how students adapted to emergency remote learning, specifically focusing on students’ resource-management strategies using an individual differences approach. One thousand eight hundred university students completed a questionnaire on their resource-management strategies and indicators of successful adaptation (...) to emergency remote learning. On average, students reported being less able to regulate their attention, effort, and time and less motivated compared to the situation before the crisis started; they also reported investing more time and effort in their self-study. Using a k-means cluster analysis, we identified four adaptation profiles and labeled them according to the reported changes in their resource-management strategies: the overwhelmed, the surrenderers, the maintainers, and the adapters. Both the overwhelmed and surrenderers appeared to be less able to regulate their effort, attention, and time and reported to be less motivated to study than before the crisis. In contrast, the adapters appreciated the increased level of autonomy and were better able to self-regulate their learning. The resource-management strategies of the maintainers remained relatively stable. Students’ responses to open-answer questions on their educational experience, coded using a thematic analysis, were consistent with the quantitative profiles. Implications about how to support students in adapting to online learning are discussed. (shrink)

Statements about the behavior of biological entities, e.g. about the interaction between two proteins, abound in the literature on molecular biology and are increasingly becoming the targets of information extraction and text mining techniques. We show that an accurate analysis of the semantics of such statements reveals a number of ambiguities that is necessary to take into account in the practice of biomedical ontology engineering. Several concurring formalizations are proposed. Emphasis is laid on the discussion of biological dispositions.

The construction of complex ontologies can be facilitated by adapting existing vocabularies. There is little clarity and in fact little consensus as to what modifications of vocabularies are necessary in order to re-engineer them into ontologies. In this paper we present a method that provides clear steps to follow when re-engineering a thesaurus. The method makes use of top-level ontologies and was derived from the structural differences between thesauri and ontologies as well as from best practices in modeling, some of (...) which have been advocated in the biomedical domain. We illustrate each step of our method with examples from a re-engineering case study about agricultural fertilizers based on the AGROVOC thesaurus. Our method makes clear that re-engineering thesauri requires far more than just a syntactic conversion into a formal language or other easily automatable steps. The method can not only be used for re-engineering thesauri, but does also summarize steps for building ontologies in general, and can hence be adapted for the re-engineering of other types of vocabularies or terminologies. (shrink)

Background -/- Ontology Design Patterns (ODPs) are representational artifacts devised to offer solutions for recurring ontology design problems. They promise to enhance the ontology building process in terms of flexibility, re-usability and expansion, and to make the result of ontology engineering more predictable. In this paper, we analyze ODP repositories and investigate their relation with upper-level ontologies. In particular, we compare the BioTop upper ontology to the Action ODP from the NeOn an ODP repository. In view of the differences in (...) the respective approaches, we investigate whether the Action ODP can be embedded into BioTop. We demonstrate that this requires re-interpreting the meaning of classes of the NeOn Action ODP in the light of the precepts of realist ontologies. -/- Results -/- As a result, the re-design required clarifying the ontological commitment of the ODP classes by assigning them to top-level categories. Thus, ambiguous definitions are avoided. Classes of real entities are clearly distinguished from classes of information artifacts. The proposed approach avoids the commitment to the existence of unclear future entities which underlies the NeOn Action ODP. Our re-design is parsimonious in the sense that existing BioTop content proved to be largely sufficient to define the different types of actions and plans. -/- Conclusions -/- The proposed model demonstrates that an expressive upper-level ontology provides enough resources and expressivity to represent even complex ODPs, here shown with the different flavors of Action as proposed in the NeOn ODP. The advantage of ODP inclusion into a top-level ontology is the given predetermined dependency of each class, an existing backbone structure and well-defined relations. Our comparison shows that the use of some ODPs is more likely to cause problems for ontology developers, rather than to guide them. Besides the structural properties, the explanation of classification results were particularly hard to grasp for 'self-sufficient' ODPs as compared with implemented and 'embedded' upper-level structures which, for example in the case of BioTop, offer a detailed description of classes and relations in an axiomatic network. This ensures unambiguous interpretation and provides more concise constraints to leverage on in the ontology engineering process. (shrink)

Ontologies aim to represent what is general, by means of universal statements. In contrast, dispositional predications capture knowledge about what is likely to happen if a certain set of circumstances obtain, which is crucial in investigative research such as in drug discovery and systems biology, where entities which are constitutionally dissimilar can nevertheless have similar behavior in a biological context. While such dispositional properties are increasingly included in biomedical ontologies, the circumstances under which the dispositions are realized are seldom explicitly (...) modeled, and doing so is problematic due to the necessary restriction to binary relations in OWL ontologies. In this paper we address this shortcoming, focusing on the bioactivity of small molecules at varying levels of concentration within a living organism as our problem domain, although our approach is generalizable to other problems. We discuss the ontological nature and representation of dispositions and their realization; consider the nature of concentrations and their representation; and finally we detail an approach to linking dispositions to the conditions for their realization which regards conditions as triggers for the process in which the disposition is realized. (shrink)

Despite the trend of secularization, pilgrimages to sacred sites flourish. Most of the pilgrims are women and the reasons for their visits often have to do with the dynamics of women's lives. Some of the pilgrims to sites dedicated to St Mary are Muslims. This is interesting in the present political context in which lines are being redrawn between Christians and Muslims and their respective religious identities. Why would Muslims go to Marian shrines and how do they negotiate their relationship (...) to the figure of the Virgin Mary and thereby define their gender and religious position? This article describes the experiences of Muslim pilgrims at Marian sites in Germany, Portugal and Turkey, and analyses these in terms of gender and religious identity. (shrink)

ABSTRACT While multiple crisis phenomena have sparked experimentation with alternative forms of production and consumption on the micro level, it is not clear if and how these alternative practices may become hegemonic and thus displace capitalism as the hegemonic order on the macro level, rather than merely fostering pockets of a solidarity economy within capitalism. This question is hard to research, because it relates to post-capitalist futures rather than actual events or phenomena in the past or present. In this article, (...) I propose a methodological framework for studying the transformative potential of counter-hegemonic initiatives. Building on debates on causality and prediction within Critical Realism, I introduce the concept of ‘ex-ante’ retroduction. Using this mode of reasoning helps to identify possible generative mechanisms for the viability and achievability of alternative futures which can then be empirically investigated. (shrink)

""Catching Ourselves in the Act" is no less than an attempt to explain intelligence. Delightful how the author dismantles traditional views in.

What standard or principle should guide decisionmaking concerning the permissibility of allowing children to be organ donors? For a long time, it has been widely assumed that the best interest of the child is the appropriate standard. But recently, several critics have charged that this standard fails to give due weight to the interests of the family and the intimate relationships that the family makes possible.1,2 This article reviews and rejects both the best-interest standard and the alternative standard recommended by (...) the critics. I then propose a new standard to help parents, healthcare professionals, and judges decide when it is and is not permissible for children to serve as organ donors. This new standard modifies and broadens the best-interest standard to allow it to account adequately for the contribution that intimate relationships make to the well-being of children. (shrink)

Dorothea Olkowski's exploration of the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze clarifies the gifted French thinker's writings for specialists and nonspecialists alike. Deleuze, she says, accomplished the "ruin of representation," the complete overthrow of hierarchic, organic thought in philosophy, politics, aesthetics, and ethics, as well as in society at large. In Deleuze's philosophy of difference, she discovers the source of a new ontology of change, which in turn opens up the creation of new modes of life and thought, not only in (...) philosophy and feminism but wherever creation is at stake. The work of contemporary artist Mary Kelly has been central to Olkowski's thinking. In Kelly she finds an artist at work whose creative acts are in themselves the ruin of representation as a whole, and the text is illustrated with Kelly's art. This original and provocative account of Deleuze contributes significantly to a critical feminist politics and philosophy, as well as to an understanding of feminist art. (shrink)

Studie over het werk van de Franse onderwijspionier Célestin Freinet (1896-1966).

ABSTRACT:Partnerships between companies and NGOs have received considerable attention in CSR in the past years. However, the role of NGO legitimacy in such partnerships has thus far been neglected. We argue that NGOs assume a status as special stakeholders of corporations which act on behalf of the common good. This role requires a particular focus on their moral legitimacy. We introduce a conceptual framework for analysing the moral legitimacy of NGOs along three dimensions, building on the theory of deliberative democracy. (...) Against this background we outline three procedural characteristics which are essential for judging the legitimacy of NGOs as potential or actual partners of corporations. (shrink)

Background Scientific and technological advancements in mapping and understanding the interrelated pathways through which biological and environmental exposures affect disease development create new possibilities for detecting disease risk factors. Early detection of such risk factors may help prevent disease onset or moderate the disease course, thereby decreasing associated disease burden, morbidity, and mortality. However, the ethical implications of screening for disease risk factors are unclear and the current literature provides a fragmented and case-by-case picture. Methods To identify key ethical considerations (...) arising from the early detection of disease risk factors, we performed a systematic scoping review. The Scopus, Embase, and Philosopher’s Index databases were searched for peer-reviewed, academic records, which were included if they were written in English or Dutch and concerned the ethics of (1) early detection of (2) disease risk factors for (3) disease caused by environmental factors or gene-environment interactions. All records were reviewed independently by at least two researchers. Results After screening 2034 titles and abstracts, and 112 full papers, 55 articles were included in the thematic synthesis of the results. We identified eight common ethical themes: (1) Reliability and uncertainty in early detection, (2) autonomy, (3) privacy, (4) beneficence and non-maleficence, (5) downstream burdens on others, (6) responsibility, (7) justice, and (8) medicalization and conceptual disruption. We identified several gaps in the literature, including a relative scarcity of research on ethical considerations associated with environmental preventive health interventions, a dearth of practical suggestions on how to address expressed concerns about overestimating health capacities, and a lack of insights into preventing undue attribution of health responsibility to individuals. Conclusions The ethical concerns arising with the early detection of risk factors are often interrelated and complex. Comprehensive ethical analyses are needed that are better embedded in normative frameworks and also assess and weigh the expected benefits of early risk factor detection. Such research is necessary for developing and implementing responsible and fair preventive health policies. (shrink)

The present paper offers a philosophical discussion of phenomena which in the empirical literature have recently been subsumed under the concept of ‘mental time travel’. More precisely, the paper considers differences and similarities between two cases of ‘mental time travel’, recollective memories (‘R-memories’) of past events on the one hand, and sensory imaginations (‘S-imaginations’) of future events on the other. It develops and defends the claim that, because a subject who R-remembers a past event is experientially aware of a past (...) particular event, while a subject who S-imagines a future event could not possibly be experientially aware of a future particular event, R-memories of past events and S-imaginations of future events are ultimately mental occurrences of two different kinds. (shrink)

Political theories in general and deliberative democracy in particular have become quite popular in business ethics over the past few years. However, the model of deliberative democracy as generally referred to in business ethics is only appropriate for conceptualizing interaction between business and society which occurs within a context which is more or less institutionalized. The model cannot account for “unregulated” interaction between business and civil society. The authors argue that scholars need to resort to the so called “critical strand” (...) of deliberative democracy if we want to conceptualize interaction that happens without the involvement of decision-making institutions as political action in a deliberative sense. Adopting this approach allows us to identify cases in which unregulated interaction between business and civil society is preferable over institutionalization. (shrink)

Dorothea Olkowski's exploration of the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze clarifies the gifted French thinker's writings for specialists and nonspecialists alike. Deleuze, she says, accomplished the "ruin of representation," the complete overthrow of hierarchic, organic thought in philosophy, politics, aesthetics, and ethics, as well as in society at large. In Deleuze's philosophy of difference, she discovers the source of a new ontology of change, which in turn opens up the creation of new modes of life and thought, not only in (...) philosophy and feminism but wherever creation is at stake. The work of contemporary artist Mary Kelly has been central to Olkowski's thinking. In Kelly she finds an artist at work whose creative acts are in themselves the ruin of representation as a whole, and the text is illustrated with Kelly's art. This original and provocative account of Deleuze contributes significantly to a critical feminist politics and philosophy, as well as to an understanding of feminist art. (shrink)

De rerum natura displays a particular closeness to the Homeric epics on various levels: in language, in arguments, and in the selection of examples. This closeness clearly goes beyond similarities arising from the affinity as determined by genre. Further, a couple of passages are veritable translations from the Iliad resp. the Odyssey. There, the attitude towards the pretext becomes especially clear. It ranges from acknowledgement to rejection and in some instances is brought about through the use of allegory. This attitude (...) of criticism and affinity at the same time can be observed in two passages of De rerum natura that are prominent due to their position: the beginning and the end allude to the plot of the Iliad. This should be read as an indication that Lucretius understood his didactic poem as an invitation to read the Homeric epics philosophically. (shrink)

This essay serves as an introduction to Anne Carson’s Euripides. It discusses Carson’s ongoing engagement with the tragedian, from Grief Lessons to her latest experimental H of H Playbook and The Trojan Women: A Comic, drawing attention to Carson’s cross-pollinating approach to Euripidean tragedy and antiquity more broadly, as well as the characteristic blending of academic and artistic styles that inform her translation poetics. The introduction includes details of the themes explored in the special issue, together with summaries of the (...) eight ‘takes’ that make up the collection. (shrink)

Sometimes we remember past objects or events in a vivid, experiential way. The present paper addresses some fundamental questions about the metaphysics of such experiential or ‘recollective’ memories. More specifically, it develops the ‘Relational Account’ of recollective memory, which consists of the following three claims. A subject who recollectively remembers a past object or event stands in an experiential relation to the relevant past object or event. The R‐remembered object or event itself is a part of the R‐memory; that is, (...) the subject's present R‐memory is partly constituted by the relevant past object or event. When a subject R‐remembers a past object, the past object is a constitutive part of the conscious experience itself; that is, the object is immediately available to the subject in conscious experience. In developing the Relational Account, the present paper hopes to make a substantial contribution to any attempt to account for the nature of recollective memory. Furthermore, in order to explain how a subject could understand the beliefs that she forms about the past on the basis of an R‐memory, and how a subject could, on the basis of an R‐memory, gain any knowledge about the past, we arguably also need to rely on the Relational Account of recollective memory. Thus, the Relational Account will also play an important role in an attempt to account for various other ways in which a subject might be related to the past in general, and to her own past in particular. Standing in such relations to the past is, in turn, a central feature of our human existence. Ultimately, therefore, the Relational Account of recollective memory should also play a crucial role in furthering our understanding of ourselves, and of our own existence in time. (shrink)

This piece looks into the atmospheric and catastrophic environments that punctuate H of H: storms, ice-breaks, volcanic eruptions, and nuclear explosions that give the tragic narrative an electrifying edge. It draws attention to a “chemical” poetics at the heart of Carson’s translation technique and thinking about Euripides’ play. This mannerism, also found in Euripides’s “combustible mixture of realism and extremism” (Grief Lessons, blurb), is not exclusive to H of H. It can be detected across Carson’s oeuvre – a tendency to (...) combust the reader’s mind in ways that become a philosophy for re-reading Euripides and, more ambitiously, Carson’s own sense of the tragic. (shrink)

In their paper "Remembering," first published in the Philosophical Review in 1966, Martin and Deutscher develop what has since come to be known as the Causal Theory of Memory. The core claim of the Causal Theory of Memory runs as follows: If someone remembers something, whether it be "public," such as a car accident, or "private," such as an itch, then the following criteria must be fulfilled: 1. Within certain limits of accuracy he represents that past thing. 2. I f (...) the thing was "public," then he observed what he now represents. If the thing was "private," then it was his. 3. His past experience of the thing was operative in producing a state or successive states in him finally operative in producing his representation. These three statements express the condition which we consider to be separately necessary and jointly sufficient, if an event is to be an instance of remembering. (shrink)

More and more companies are publicly taking a stand on social and political issues such as gay marriage legislation. This paper argues that this type of engagement, which can be called “corporate political advocacy,” raises new conceptual and normative challenges especially for theories of corporate responsibility. Furthermore, it poses practical challenges for managers who are confronted with it. This paper addresses all three challenges: first, it defines and conceptualizes corporate political advocacy and distinguishes it from other forms of corporate political (...) involvement. Second, it makes normative sense of corporate advocacy as an element of corporate responsibility. Third, it reflects on the practical implications for managers dealing with this issue. (shrink)

The present paper considers our ability to ‘shape our own mental lives’; more specifically, it considers the claim that subjects sometimes can and do engage in ‘mental self-regulation’, that is, that subjects sometimes can be, and are, actively involved with their own mental lives in a goal-directed way. This ability of mental self-regulation has been rather neglected by contemporary philosophers of mind, but I show why it deserves careful philosophical attention. In order to further our understanding of the nature of (...) the phenomenon of mental self-regulation and to locate it within the wider context of our everyday lives and the world we live in, I proceed to develop some conditions which need to be met in order for a subject to be able to engage in mental self-regulation. In developing those conditions we find that compared to the physical realm, our mental lives are a rather elusive domain in the face of attempts at intervention, and our ability to intervene in our own mental lives is rather fragile. We also find that our ability to regulate our own mental lives in many cases depends on our possession of mental skills and mental know-how. Both these observations in turn throw new light on our understanding of the nature of the human mind. (shrink)

In recent years, many states in the United States have passed legislation requiring laboratories to report the names of patients with low CD4 cell counts to their state Departments of Health. This name reporting is an integral part of the growing number of “HIV Reporting and Partner Notification Laws” which have emerged in response to recently revised guidelines suggested by the National Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Name reporting for patients with low CD4 cell counts allows for a more accurate (...) tracking of the natural history of HIV disease. However, given that this test is now considered to be an “indicator” of HIV, should it be subject to the same strict consent required for HIV testing? While the CDC has recommended that each state develop its own consent requirements for CD4 cell testing, most states have continued to rely on the presumed consent standards for CD4 cell testing that were in place before the passage of name reporting statutes. This allows physicians who treat patients who refuse HIV testing to order a CD4 cell blood analysis to gather information that is indicative of their patient’s HIV status. This paper examines the ethical and legal issues associated with the practice of “conscientious subversion” as it arises when clinicians use CD4 cell counts as a surrogate for HIV testing. (shrink)

Les princesses participaient pleinement à la mobilité qui caractérisait le mode de vie et l'habitus de la haute noblesse à l'époque moderne. La plupart du temps délaissés par les études sur le voyage ou considérés comme de simples “ affaires de famille ” dépourvues de toute importance sociale ou politique, les voyages de princesses revêtaient, au contraire, un caractère hautement politique. Dans la haute noblesse, les femmes qui visitaient des cours différentes, jouaient un rôle clé pour les relations extérieures d'une (...) maison au même titre que les voyageurs hommes. La fonction politique du voyage allait souvent de pair avec de nombreux transferts culturels, destinés à augmenter le prestige et le rang d'une cour. Les voyages de princesses laissaient ainsi des marques durables sur la vie de cour et, au-delà, sur la société de leur pays d'origine. (shrink)

After a short sketch of Lowe’s account of his four basic categories, I discuss his theory of formal ontological relations and how Lowe wants to account for dispositional predications. I argue that on the ontic level Lowe is a pan-categoricalist, while he is a language dualist and an exemplification dualist with regard to the dispositional/categorical distinction. I argue that Lowe does not present an adequate account of disposition. From an Aristotelian point of view, Lowe conflates dispositional predication with hôs epi (...) to poly statements about what is normally or mostly the case. (shrink)

Dorothea B. Heitsch is Assistant Professor of French and German at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania.

The following paper considers one important feature of our experiential or ‘recollective’ memories, namely their spatial perspectival characteristics. I begin by considering the ‘Past-Dependency-Claim’, which states that every recollective memory (or ‘R-memory’) has its spatial perspectival characteristics in virtue of the subject’s present awareness of the spatial perspectival characteristics of a relevant past perceptual experience. Although the Past-Dependency-Claim might for various reasons seem particularly attractive, I show that it is false. I then proceed to develop and defend the ‘Present-Dependency-Claim’, namely (...) the claim that the spatial perspectival characteristics of an R-memory depend on the spatial perspectival characteristics of perceptual experiences that the subject has at the time at which the R-memory occurs. Lastly, I discuss the phenomenon of so-called ‘observer-memories’, which presents a special challenge for any attempt to account for the spatial perspectival characteristics of R-memories. I argue that we have no good reason to deny that the relevant experiences should count as memories, and I show that we can account for the spatial perspectival characteristics of observer-memories with the help of the ‘Present-Dependency-Claim’. More generally, the paper shows that certain events that occur in a subject’s mental life (namely, a subject’s R-memories) are necessarily dependent on other events that occur in the relevant subject’s mental life (namely, on certain perceptual experiences). This more general conclusion in turn should be relevant for any attempt to develop an appropriate account of a subject’s mental life as a whole. (shrink)

We sometimes experience emotions which are directed at past events (or situations) which we witnessed at the time when they occurred (or obtained). The present paper explores the role which such "autobiographically past-directed emotions" (or "APD-emotions") play in a subject's mental life. A defender of the "Memory-Claim" holds that an APD-emotion is a memory, namely a memory of the emotion which the subject experienced at the time when the event originally occurred (or the situation obtained) towards which the APD-emotion is (...) directed. On this view, APD-emotions might play an important role in our acquiring knowledge about our own past emotions, which renders the view rather attractive. However, as I show in the present paper, none of the various possible versions of the Memory-Claim are tenable. This leaves us with the "Universal-New-Emotion-Claim", according to which all APD-emotions are new emotional responses to the past events (or situations) towards which the relevant APD-emotions are directed. Further consideration of the "Universal-New-Emotion-Claim" shows that while APD-emotions do not play the epistemological role they could have played had some version of the Memory-Claim turned out to be true, a subject's APD-emotions nevertheless do play a vital role in a subject's mental life: they help the subject to develop a balanced sense of self. (shrink)

Capitalism is often modernised and stabilised by its very critics. Gramsci called this paradox a 'passive revolution'. What are the pitfalls through which critique becomes absorbed? This question is taken up using a Cultural Political Economy approach for analysing the resistant potential of 'degrowth discourses' against the neoliberal hegemony. Degrowth advocates an economy without growth in order to achieve the transformation that is necessary in ecological and social terms. It thus does not follow the neoliberal idea of green capitalism that (...) already has absorbed much environmental critique. This paper argues that degrowth needs to be further differentiated in order to draw any conclusions about its counter-hegemonic potential. Three dimensions are identified for differentiating sub-hegemonic from counter-hegemonic degrowth positions: the mode of growth critique, the interpellation of the individual and the subsequent actions motivated. (shrink)