1. Cornelius Valerius en Sebastianus Foxius Morzillus als bronnen van Coornhert.

Informed consent is a key condition for prenatal screening programmes to reach their aim of promoting reproductive autonomy. Reaching this aim is currently being challenged with the introduction of non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) in first-trimester prenatal screening programmes: amongst others its procedural ease—it only requires a blood draw and reaches high levels of reliability—might hinder women’s understanding that they should make a personal, informed decision about screening. We offer arguments for a renewed recognition and use of informed consent compared to (...) informed choice, and for a focus on value-consistent choices and personalized informational preferences. We argue for a three-step counselling model in which three decision moments are distinguished and differently addressed: (1) professionals explore women’s values concerning whether and why they wish to know whether their baby has a genetic disorder; (2) women receive layered medical-technical information and are asked to make a decision about screening; (3) during post-test counselling, women are supported in decision-making about the continuation or termination of their pregnancy. This model might also be applicable in other fields of genetic (pre-test) counselling, where techniques for expanding genome analysis and burdensome test-outcomes challenge counselling of patients. (shrink)

This book focuses on two important, interlinked themes in psychiatry, i.e., the relation between self (or: person), context and psychopathology; and the intrinsic value-ladenness of psychiatry as a practice. -/- Written against the background of scientistic tendencies in today’s psychiatry, it is argued in Part I that psychiatry needs a clinical conception of psychopathology alongside more traditional scientific conceptions; that this clinical conception of psychopathology must be based on a fundamental rethinking of the interaction between illness manifestations, contextual influences and (...) the patient as person, such that psychopathology is conceived as the product of this interaction rather than as the outward manifestation of a broken mechanism within the patient. -/- In Part II, it is shown that self- and context-related factors have a large impact on who one is as a professional. I argue that an analysis is needed of the normative aspects of the relations that sustain and frame professional role-fulfilment. This analysis culminates into a so-called normative practice model (NPM) which distinguishes between qualifying, conditioning and foundational principles (or: rules, norms). The normative practice model helps to locate and resist scientistic defenses of the legitimacy of psychiatry and to replace them by a positive account that provides clinicians (and scientists) the conceptual tools they need to justify what they do in broader contexts. The main thrust of the argument is to show that psychiatry needs a value-sensitive account of its legitimacy, in which other normative dimensions are recognized than those that sustain the expert role. Psychiatrists should in other words not defend the legitimacy of their profession by referring to the expert role solely but provide a broader account in which justice is done to the broader social, legal, and economic contexts of professional activity. The analysis of this inherent normativity begins within clinical practice, it extends to the concept of disease as well as to wider domains of psychiatric care and the sociology of professions, and, finally, amounts into an analysis of the value-ladenness of interactions between healthcare institutions, the government, professional organizations and patient groups. (shrink)

A person's cognitive map, or knowledge of large‐scale space, is built up from observations gathered as he travels through the environment. It acts as a problem solver to find routes and relative positions, as well as describing the current location. The TOUR model captures the multiple representations that make up the cognitive map, the problem‐solving strategies it uses, and the mechanisms for assimilating new information. The representations have rich collections of states of partial knowledge, which support many of the performance (...) characteristics of common‐sense knowledge. (shrink)

Understanding a sentence and integrating it into the discourse depends upon the identification of its focus, which, in spoken German, is marked by accentuation. In the case of written language, which lacks explicit cues to accent, readers have to draw on other kinds of information to determine the focus. We study the joint or interactive effects of two kinds of information that have no direct representation in print but have each been shown to be influential in the reader’s text comprehension: (...) i. the (low-level) rhythmic-prosodic structure that is based on the distribution of lexically stressed syllables, and ii. the (high-level) discourse context that is grounded in the memory of previous linguistic content. Systematically manipulating these factors, we examine the way readers resolve a syntactic ambiguity involving the scopally ambiguous focus operator auch (engl. `too') in both oral (Experiment 1) and silent reading (Experiment 2). The results of both experiments attest that discourse context and local linguistic rhythm conspire to guide the syntactic and, concomitantly, the focus-structural analysis of ambiguous sentences. We argue that reading comprehension requires the (implicit) assignment of accents according to the focus structure and that, by establishing a prominence profile, the implicit prosodic rhythm directly affects accent assignment. (shrink)

The qualitative theory of nomic truth approximation, presented in Kuipers in his, in which ‘the truth’ concerns the distinction between nomic, e.g. physical, possibilities and impossibilities, rests on a very restrictive assumption, viz. that theories always claim to characterize the boundary between nomic possibilities and impossibilities. Fully recognizing two different functions of theories, viz. excluding and representing, this paper drops this assumption by conceiving theories in development as tuples of postulates and models, where the postulates claim to exclude nomic impossibilities (...) and the models claim to represent nomic possibilities. Revising theories becomes then a matter of adding or revising models and/or postulates in the light of increasing evidence, captured by a special kind of theories, viz. ‘data-theories’. Under the assumption that the data-theory is true, achieving empirical progress in this way provides good reasons for the abductive conclusion that truth approximation has been achieved as well. Here, the notions of truth approximation and empirical progress are formally direct generalizations of the earlier ones. However, truth approximation is now explicitly defined in terms of increasing truth-content and decreasing falsity-content of theories, whereas empirical progress is defined in terms of lasting increased accepted and decreased rejected content in the light of increasing evidence. These definitions are strongly inspired by a paper of Gustavo Cevolani, Vincenzo Crupi and Roberto Festa, viz., “Verisimilitude and belief change for conjunctive theories” :183–222, 2011). (shrink)

In the debate surrounding the introduction of non-invasive prenatal testing in prenatal screening programmes, the concept of routinisation is often used to refer to concerns and potential negative consequences of the test. A literature analysis shows that routinisation has many different meanings, which can be distinguished in three major versions of the concept. Each of these versions comprises several inter-related fears and concerns regarding prenatal screening and particularly regarding NIPT in three areas: informed choice, freedom to choose and consequences for (...) people with a disability. Three of the strongest arguments raised under the flag of routinisation are assessed for their validity: the threat that NIPT poses to informed choice, the potential increase in uptake of first-trimester prenatal screening and its consequences for social pressure to participate in screening or terminate affected pregnancies, and the negative consequences for disabled people. These routinisation arguments lack empirical or normative ground. However, the results of this analysis do not imply that no attention should be paid to possible problems surrounding the introduction of NIPT. At least two problems remain and should be addressed: there should be an ongoing debate about the requirements of informed choice, particularly related to an expanded scope of prenatal screening. Also, reproductive autonomy can only be achieved when expecting parents’ options are variegated, real and valuable, so that they can continue to choose whether or not to screen or to terminate a pregnancy. (shrink)

This book offers an Arabic edition, English translation, study and glossaries of ʿUbaidallāh Ibn Buḫtīšūʿ’s important work on apparent death; an appendix moreover provides the Arabic and Hebrew recensions of ʿUbaidallāh’s lost Greek _Vorlage_.

Vijf opstellen over de vraag, hoe christenen in een democratie politiek kunnen samenwerken met andersdenkenden.

Maimonides, one of the most celebrated rabbis in the history of Judaism, was a prolific author of influential Arabic philosophical and medical treatises and two of the most important works on Jewish law. _Medical Aphorisms_ is the best known and most comprehensive of his works, and Gerrit Bos offers here a masterful English translation with detailed annotations. _Medical Aphorisms_ consists of approximately 1500 maxims compiled by Maimonides from the treatises of Galen, the renowned ancient Greek physician. Maimonides arranges the (...) aphorisms into twenty-five treatises, organizing them by traditional medieval subspecialties such as gynecology, hygiene, and diet. He also includes a section examining unusual cases from Galen and offers a critical analysis of Galen’s theories. The first of six volumes, _Medical Aphorisms_ provides tantalizing insights into the work of Galen, as it draws on treatises of Galen that no longer exist and shines a light into the world of medieval and ancient medicine. It will be a rich and valuable resource for students and scholars working in the history of medicine, Jewish studies, and medieval Arabic culture. (shrink)

The development and management of the Covid-19 outbreak in the Netherlands is described. The “intelligent lockdown” was aimed at minimizing new infections and limiting the number of deaths, while keeping the economy running as much as possible. Changes in consumer behavior, exit strategy, and lessons learned are considered.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 10.4 (2003) 347-352 [Access article in PDF] Idem, Ipse, and Loss of the Self Gerrit Glas The case histories of Dr. Wells and the comments on them require first of all more conceptual clarity. In this article I will first introduce, with Paul Ricoeur, a distinction between idem identity and ipse identity. Then, I will discuss the merits and pitfalls of applying narrative theory (...) to pathologies of the self. Behind the discussion on the breakdown of narrative unity, deep questions loom, most notably about conceivability and meaning of the notion of breakdown of self-relatedness as such; and about the moral basis for clinical action given the lack of a self to treat. These questions amount to the acknowledgment of a normative component in the concept of self and personhood, which can not be accounted for by idem identity solely. Individual and Structural Identity Let us begin with identity. When I identify a tree, at least two aspects, are implied in the act of identification. The first aspect concerns the recognition of the tree as member of a certain class (or family) of living things. In the tree we recognize certain features, or aspects, that are typical for this particular class (or family) of trees. This recognition is based on similarity or sameness. The second aspect in the act of identification consists of the recognition of the tree as this individual tree. We are dealing here with a basic, rather mysterious capacity: the capacity to distinguish one individual entity from the other; or: the capacity to know individuals.Both aspects, the recognition of similarity and of individuality, are interwoven in everyday acts of identification. So, we discern the specific features of a particular tree against the background of an overall (or general) image of trees. At the same time we recognize these general features given our capacity to distinguish one tree from the other. There are, accordingly, two sides in the concept of identity: structural identity and individual identity. Individual identity refers to the uniqueness of a thing and structural identity to the properties a thing shares with others things.This distinction can be applied to human beings, but only in a certain way and to a certain extent. So, John is a human being, and as a human being he has both distinctive and general features. However with regard to John himself, that is, the particular person I aim at when I speak about John, the picture is slightly different. Individuality and similarity (universality) refer here to one and the same person. The uniqueness of John is now commonly referred to as numerical identity. There is only one singular John. Even if there were a John with the same birth date, fingerprint and DNA profile, this would be another John, John 2 so to say. This uniqueness is sometimes articulated in terms of the position John 1 and John 2 occupy in the space-time continuum. Because John 1 and John 2 cannot occupy the same spatiotemporal position, [End Page 347] they must be separate, two distinct entities. This is of course a limited view on uniqueness of persons; so, we will have to say more about this in a moment.The structural (or general) characteristics of John, the John-ness of John so to say, is commonly called qualitative identity. Qualitative identity consists of the sum of all those enduring properties which could serve as criterion to distinguish John from other persons in the world. Qualitative identity, however, does not completely coincide with structural identity, mentioned earlier. This is obvious from the fact that the John-ness of John refers to those structural (enduring, general) properties for which only this particular John qualifies, whereas the human being-ness of John refers to the properties John shares with all other human beings. So, in those cases in which the structural dimension of identity refers to only one entity, for instance in the case of the John-ness of John, the emphasis is not on intersubject similarity but on intrasubject similarity. This intrasubject similarity refers to continuity in time and to... (shrink)

Straightforward theory revision, taking into account as effectively as possible the established nomic possibilities and, on their basis induced empirical laws, is conducive for (unstratified) nomic truth approximation. The question this paper asks is: is it possible to reconstruct the relevant theory revision steps, on the basis of incoming evidence, in AGM-terms? A positive answer will be given in two rounds, first for the case in which the initial theory is compatible with the established empirical laws, then for the case (...) in which it is incompatible with at least one such a law. (shrink)

Retinoids play a critical role in patterning, segmentation, and neurogenesis of the posterior hindbrain and it has been proposed that they act as a posteriorising signal during hindbrain development. Until now, direct evidence that endogenous retinoid signalling acts through a gradient to specify cell fates along the anteroposterior axis has been missing. Two recent studies tested the requirement for retinoid signalling in the developing hindbrain through systematic application of a pan-retinoic acid receptor antagonist.(1,2) They demonstrate a stage-dependent requirement for increasing (...) retinoid signalling activity along the hindbrain that proceeds from anterior to posterior. Together these findings challenge the concept of a stable gradient of retinoic acid across the hindbrain and warrant a re-interpretation of the phenotypes obtained by genetic and nutritional disruption of retinoid signalling in the amniote embryo. BioEssays 23:981–986, 2001. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

Does preaching bring God on stage? Protestants assume an intimate relationship between the ‘Word of God’ and preaching. However, the principle that ‘preaching of the Word of God is the Word of God’ caused intense debates about the status of God language. The author highlights the classic disputes of the 19th and 20th centuries and argues that the old dilemma must be overcome. Sermons address the subjective-contextual conditions of the listeners, and this in no way precludes the attention for divine (...) disclosure. On the contrary, there is a true reciprocity between personal spirituality and the sense of God as really other. The author defends the thesis that the renewed attention for the human condition in the theological debates of the last decades should also include a positive stand towards the believer’s spiritual awareness of God’s real existence and presence. (shrink)

While the special volumes of the series of Handbooks of the Philosophy of Science address topics relative to a specific discipline, this general volume deals ...

In section I the notions of logical and inductive probability will be discussed as well as two explicanda, viz. degree of confirmation, the base for inductive probability, and degree of evidential support, Popper's favourite explicandum. In section II it will be argued that Popper's paradox of ideal evidence is no paradox at all; however, it will also be shown that Popper's way out has its own merits.

This paper primarily deals with theconceptual prospects for generalizing the aim ofabduction from the standard one of explainingsurprising or anomalous observations to that ofempirical progress or even truth approximation. Itturns out that the main abduction task then becomesthe instrumentalist task of theory revision aiming atan empirically more successful theory, relative to theavailable data, but not necessarily compatible withthem. The rest, that is, genuine empirical progress aswell as observational, referential and theoreticaltruth approximation, is a matter of evaluation andselection, and possibly new (...) generation tasks forfurther improvement. The paper concludes with a surveyof possible points of departure, in AI and logic, forcomputational treatment of the instrumentalist taskguided by the `comparative evaluation matrix''. (shrink)

Moshe ben Maimon, or Moses Maimonides, remains one of the most celebrated rabbis in this history of Judaism; his numerous writings include philosophical and medical treatises in Arabic, two of history's most important works on Jewish law, and, most notably, efforts to reconcile Aristotelian philosophy with biblical teaching. The _Complete Medical Works_, edited by Gerrit Bos of the Martin-Buber-Institut fur Judaistik at the University of Cologne, collects the entirety of Maimonides's medical writings. Notwithstanding its title, _On Asthma_ is in (...) fact a complete regimen of health, designed for the needs of a high-ranking patient whose identity is not stated. In true Galenic fashion, Maimonides stresses that a healthy lifestyle and diet are the most important preventative measures against chronic illness such as asthma. Good and bad foods are described in detail, and many recipes for beneficial dishes and drugs are included, with Maimonides adapting Galenic regimens to the needs of his Muslim patient. (shrink)

The debate on the ethical permissibility of euthanasia in medicine has a corollary in the ethical application of drugs. The overall moral limits of medical treatment apply evenly to the moral acceptability of the pharmacological aspect of the act of euthanasia. The pharmacological aspect of the act is of ethical importance not only for the person requesting an active ending of his or her life, but also for the grieving family. Keywords: effectivity, ideal euthanaticum, patient's/family's interest, pharmacology of euthanasia, routes (...) of application CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

The approach to AIDS as a disease and a threat for social discrimination is used as an example to illustrate a conceptual thesis. This thesis is a claim that concerns what we call a medical issue or not, what is medicalised or needs to be demedicalised. In the friction between medicalisation and demedicalisation as discursive strategies the latter approach can only be effected through the employment of discourses or discursive strategies other than medicine, such as those of the law and (...) of economics. These discourses each realise different values, promote a different subject, and have a different concept of man. The concept of discourse is briefly outlined against concepts such as the linear growth concept of science and the growth model of science as changes in paradigm. The issue of testing for AIDS shows a conflict between the medical and the legal discourse and illustrates the title of our contribution: the human body as field of conflict between discourses. (shrink)

RésuméL'ouvrage galéniqueSur les Éléments selon Hippocrateest une importante source d'information concernant les théories physiques de l'antiquité tardive. Les diverses doctrines atomistes discutées par Galien ainsi que les arguments employés par lui pour les réfuter ont été étudiés de près par les premiersMutakallimūn.Les abrégés de cet ouvrage, qui semblent avoir été écrits plusieurs siècles après Galien, et dont certains remontent aux débuts de la culture islamique, présentent un intérêt particulier. Dans cet article, nous donnons une édition, une traduction et une étude (...) d'un abrégé inconnu jusqu'ici, conservé dans un unique manuscrit, qui l'attribue à Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq. Comme les autres abrégés, il s'agit en fait d'une doxographie de théories physiques qui ne reproduit pas toujours précisément ce que Galien a dit, mais qui reflète le discours de l'époque où elle a été rédigée. (shrink)

Enactive approaches to emotion are rare and to anxiety and anxiety disorder even more. This article aims to show how an enactive paradigm might be helpful in solving some problems in the clinical and scientific understanding of anxiety and anxiety disorder. I begin by pointing at a number of relevant clinical features of anxiety and anxiety disorder and by sketching how and why anxiety theories have difficulties with doing justice to these features. I specifically focus on two themes: a) how (...) to conceptualize anxiety as the expression of a dynamical interaction with the environment instead of as just a reaction to the environment (or to... (shrink)

My view on what I see as the predicament of Christian philosophy in ethics has been shaped by a number of experiences. I will first share with you some of these experiences, to give you an impression of the background against which this article has been written.

In this note a recently developed quantum oscillating finite space cosmological model is described. The principle novelty of the model is that there is a quantum blurring of the classical singularity between cycles, instead of a singularity free bounce. Recently, Quentin Smith (1988) has argued that present theoretical and observational evidence justifies the belief that the past history of the universe is finite. The relevance of this cosmological model to Smith's arguments is discussed.

Assuming that the target of theory oriented empirical science in general and of nomic truth approximation in particular is to characterize the boundary or demarcation between nomic possibilities and nomic impossibilities, I have presented, in my article entitled “Models, postulates, and generalized nomic truth approximation” :3057–3077, 2016. 10.1007/s11229-015-0916-9), the ‘basic’ version of generalized nomic truth approximation, starting from ‘two-sided’ theories. Its main claim is that nomic truth approximation can perfectly be achieved by combining two prima facie opposing views on theories: (...) the traditional view: theories are postulates that exclude certain possibilities from being realizable, enabling explanation and prediction and the model view: theories are sets of models that claim to represent certain realizable possibilities. Nomic truth approximation, i.e. increasing truth-content and decreasing falsity-content, becomes in this way revising theories by revising their models and/or their postulates in the face of increasing evidence. The basic version of generalized nomic truth approximation is in many respects as simple as possible. Among other things, it does not take into account that one conceptual possibility may be more similar to another than a third one. However, for example, one theory may include a possibility that is more similar to a wrongly not included possibility than another theory can offer. Similarly, for wrongly not excluded possibilities. In this article it will be shown that such ‘refined’ considerations can be taken into account by adapted clauses based on a ternary similarity relation between possibilities. This allows again abductive conclusions about refined truth approximation if a theory is persistently more successful in the refined sense than another. It will also be indicated and illustrated that this refined approach enables a specification to the effect that refined truth approximation can be obtained by the method of idealization and subsequent concretization. Finally, the basic and the refined approach will be evaluated with regard to some general principles and objections that have been discussed in the literature. (shrink)

Richard Rorty is one of the most oft-cited yet least understood philosophers of the twentieth century. This book offers an overview and introduction to Rorty's ideas, key writings and contributions to the various fields of philosophy. Chronologically organized, the book traces the development of Rorty's thought and examines all the key topics, and controversies, central to his work. Ronald A. Kuipers introduces Rorty's complex thought through the exploration of three Rortyan personas: The Philosophical Therapist, The Liberal Ironist, and the Anticlerical (...) Prophet. This exploration of Rorty's multivalent yet deeply coherent intellectual identity is set against the background of Rorty's personal motivations for studying philosophy, and for pursuing the controversial questions he did. The book portrays how, in conversation with the traditions of American Pragmatism, Analytic Philosophy, and Continental Thought, Rorty weaves his own unique and original philosophy. Rorty's originality resides in his fresh approach to interrelated social and political problems, revealing a thinker who has important reasons for wading into controversial intellectual waters. This is the ideal companion to study of this hugely influential thinker. (shrink)

In his book A secular age, Charles Taylor rejects the view that modernity must lead to a steady decline of religion and argues that although the conditions of belief changed, causing a destabilization and recomposition of religious forms, our modern world still can and should be open to the transcendent. I attempt to give a general overview of A secular age by describing shifts in worldview with respect to nature, self, society and God. Finally, I discuss how Taylor’s message relates (...) to that of Reformational thinking. Taylor’s description of motivations to regard the world as closed to the transcendent corresponds well with the Reformational analysis of the humanistic ground motives of freedom and nature. Taylor, however, seems to consider our current worldview as a neutral basis and religion as an optional add-on. (shrink)

Important bioethcs changes are underway in the Netherlands that carry, for better or worse, far-reaching social consequences. The two major areas of change involve economics and containing soaring health costs and end-of-life care as reflected in several high-profile cases: in a decision handed down by the Dutch Supreme Court on reviewing the procedures for the termination of life, in the discussion surrounding The Groningen Protocol and the active ending of lives in neonatology, and in a report of a Royal Dutch (...) Medical Society's Committee on the role of physicians in ending life in cases of requests to die outside the area of terminal diseases. (shrink)

Philosophical issues with respect to anxiety and its pathological variants arise at the border between everyday and clinical understanding of anxiety, between clinical and scientific approaches and between scientific concepts and the philosophical frameworks they refer to. These four ways of understanding can be seen as epistemic levels that point at different aspects and qualities of anxiety. After a brief historical introduction the three interfaces will be discussed. Philosophical questions at the interface between the first two levels relate to the (...) issue of where to draw the boundary between normal and pathological manifestations of anxiety and of how to balance the medical view with everyday understandings of anxiety. At the interface between clinical and scientific approaches, the question arises whether scientific theories and models are adequate, more particularly, which aspects of the clinical picture can be explained by scientific theories and concepts. The third interface, between scientific concepts and the philosophical frameworks they presuppose, is the origin of debates about what belongs to science and what should be regarded as meta-theoretical or paradigmatic. To what extent does a particular scientific concept stand on its own and to what extent does it borrow from pre-theoretical and/or philosophical views? (shrink)

I thank Giovanna Colombetti and Dan Stein for their careful reading and thoughtful comments.Colombetti is right when she suggests that in enactivism there are no 'mere physiological states.' She criticizes the following quotation: "If there is no self-referentiality, even after attempts at clarification, the putative emotion is just a physiological state or a sensation." My formulation, she says, echoes traditional, disembodied cognitivist accounts of emotion, according to which bodily arousal and bodily sensation, without accompanying intentional evaluations and judgments, are mere (...) physiological happenings. Enactivism rejects the dichotomy between cognitive appraisals and bodily arousal.I agree that I could (and... (shrink)