The aim of the present investigation was to describe and to classify significant ethical problems encountered by the members of the staff during the daily clinical work at a hospital medical department. A set of definitions was prepared for the purpose, including the definition of a 'significant ethical problem'. During a three month period 426 inpatients and 173 outpatients were admitted. Significant ethical problems were encountered during the management of 106 in-patients (25 per cent) and 9 out-patients (5 per cent). (...) No significant difference was found between the frequency of ethical problems in female and male patients, but a positive correlation was noted between the number of problems and the patients' age. The problem types were classified according to a problem list. The results of this investigation suggest that greater attention must be paid to discussions about ethical problems among doctors and other categories of health personnel and that, among others, medical students ought to be taught the analysis of ethical problems. (shrink)

Franz Brentanos (1838-1917) Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte aus dem Jahre 1874 gehört zu den Klassikern der Philosophie und der Psychologie. Mit diesem Werk, das den Ausgangspunkt sowohl für die phänomenologische Tradition als auch für die heutige Philosophie des Geistes markiert, konnte sich Brentano im damaligen philosophischen Panorama durchsetzen - sein Name ist auch heute noch unauflöslich mit diesem Werk verknüpft. Die Entdeckung bzw. Wiederentdeckung der Grundstruktur psychischer Phänomene, d. h. deren Intentionalität, stellt wohl den wichtigsten Beitrag Brentanos zum Aufbau einer (...) Analytik des Geistes dar. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:A Pragmatist Philosophy of History by Marnie BinderPiers H. G. StephensA Pragmatist Philosophy of History Marnie Binder. Lexington Books, 2023.Looking at current scholarship and opinion in American philosophy, one can easily conclude that there has been much more work done on studying the history of pragmatist philosophy than there has been on what pragmatist philosophy can give to the study of history. Ever since the resurrection of (...) interest in pragmatism in the late twentieth century, we have seen a range of publications offering new interpretations for the ideas of the classical pragmatists, as well as important new applications for philosophical pragmatism and the moving to center stage of historically sidelined individuals and groups. What we have seen relatively little of, however, aside from a 2016 symposium in the European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, is sustained engagement with the question of what a classically pragmatist approach to historical inquiry might contribute, entail, or imply. It is this important niche in the ecosystem of American philosophy that Marnie Binder's A Pragmatist Philosophy of History seeks to partially fill in.Binder, who is perhaps best known for her past writings on José Ortega y Gasset, is at pains from the start to indicate both the humility and the utility of her project. As befits the tradition, there are no grandiose philosophical pretensions here, with the "goal in presenting a pragmatist philosophy of [End Page 112] history" merely being "to add another apparatus to the toolkits of the philosopher and the historian," an extra perspective that is "meant to complement other methodologies" (xi; emphasis in original), as she explains in her introduction. At the same time, pragmatism can offer something distinctive, firstly through asking the pragmatic question of what difference is meant by the accepting of particular presumed facts as being true, and secondly, being able to better understand why certain historical details have relevance, value, and meaning for us as a result of answering the first question. A pragmatist philosophy of history is helpful then, Binder maintains, as it "is in a unique position to bridge the speculative analytic divide" (xiii), and her approach to doing this is to draw upon the resources found in the works of a succession of the familiar classical pragmatists, building toward a synthesis and a cashing out of insights in her concluding reflections.Structurally the work consists of an explanatory introduction followed by six chapters, each dedicated to a particular pragmatist and their insights, leading finally to an extended concluding section drawing the component parts together and answering possible objections to the project. Pragmatism, as Binder recognizes, is seldom thought of as a historically orientated philosophy, but she argues that for each of these thinkers—William James, John Dewey, F. C. S. Schiller, Charles Sanders Peirce, George Herbert Mead, and Jane Addams—there is at least the germ of a philosophy of history that can be unearthed and developed, eventually helping to inform understanding of what is needed to bring a pragmatist ethics into practical reality, the last of which is manifested primarily by Addams. Thus, the treatment of William James in chapter 1 homes in on James's psychological insights into the way that experienced reality forms a temporal continuum; our consciousness necessarily selects from the experiences of the past, ascribing interpretations and assuming levels of facticity and relevance, since no individual can know all the facts or select among them with perfect impartiality. The continuum will be one that speaks to the inquirer's concerns with accuracy, practicality, meaningfulness, and coherence, as all knowledge comes about through temporal processes, and since past events are continuously added to and can be continuously reinterpreted, it can have no real or ultimate beginning or end. Accordingly, for a Jamesian pragmatist account, the "continuum of history is the way in which we construct a meaning for history of the connected past experiences with the present and in view of the future—this is what we call 'history'" (7; emphasis in original), and Binder draws upon José Medina's recent work to further illuminate how such history can and will be continuously critically reconstructed. In addition, she observes, such reconstruction [End Page... (shrink)

In the present paper, we develop the algorithmic correspondence theory for hybrid logic with binder |$\mathcal {H}(@, \downarrow )$|⁠. We define the class of Sahlqvist inequalities for |$\mathcal {H}(@, \downarrow )$|⁠, and each inequality of which is shown to have a first-order frame correspondent effectively computable by an algorithm |$\textsf {ALBA}^{\downarrow }$|⁠.

In the present paper, we continue the research in Zhao (2021, Logic J. IGPL) to develop the Sahlqvist completeness theory for hybrid logic with satisfaction operators and downarrow binders |$\mathcal {L}( @, {\downarrow })$|⁠. We define the class of restricted Sahlqvist formulas for |$\mathcal {L}( @, {\downarrow })$| following the ideas in Conradie and Robinson (2017, J. Logic Comput., 27, 867–900), but we follow a different proof strategy which is purely proof-theoretic, namely showing that for every restricted Sahlqvist formula |$\varphi (...) $| and its hybrid pure correspondence |$\pi $|⁠, |$\textbf {K}_{\mathcal {H}( @, {\downarrow })}+\varphi $| proves |$\pi $|⁠; therefore, |$\textbf {K}_{\mathcal {H}( @, {\downarrow })}+\varphi $| is complete with respect to the class of frames defined by |$\pi $|⁠, using a modified version |$\textsf {ALBA}^{{\downarrow }}_{\textsf {Modified}}$| of the algorithm |$\textsf {ALBA}^{{\downarrow }}$| defined in Zhao (2021, Logic J. IGPL). (shrink)

This is a review of the new translation-cum-commentary of Lucretius, De rerum Natura by Klaus Binder, published by dtv, Munich 2017. The review stresses the importance of Lucretius work for the Enlightenment. The translation is o. k. on the whole, however the translator should have avoided rendering the Latin >religio< by >Aberglauben< (superstition). >superstition< was the word chosen by the English translator in the Loeb-Library, W. H. D. Rouse. Rouse was a Headmaster of the Perse School in Cambridge and (...) he may have chosen this rendering in 1924 to avoid getting into trouble with the Church of England. (shrink)

Die Neuausgabe von Franz Brentanos Schriften zur Ethik und Asthetik basiert auf den von ihm zu Lebzeiten veroffentlichten Aufsatzen. Eine systematische Abhandlung zu diesen Gebieten im Sinne eigenstandiger Monographien aus Brentanos Feder existiert leider nicht. Es gibt lediglich Vorlesungsskripte, aus denen ersichtlich wird, wie Brentano Ethik und Asthetik konzipiert und in welchem Zusammenhang sie mit den anderen Teilen seines Werkes, allen voran der Psychologie, stehen. Die hier vorliegenden kurzen Abhandlungen und Vortrage behandeln spezielle Aspekte und Fragen aus dem Bereich der (...) Ethik und der Asthetik und sind auf die jeweilige Leser- bzw. Horerschaft zugeschnitten. Sie konnen allein stehen, konnen aber auch als Exemplifikationen von Brentanos empirisch-analytischer Philosophie betrachtet werden.". (shrink)

Der vorliegende zweite Band der Veroffentlichten Schriften enthalt die zwei Schriften Brentanos Uber ein optisches Paradox, sowie Zur Lehre von den optischen Tauschungen, Zur Lehre von der Empfindung, Von der psychologischen Analyse der Tonqualitaten in ihre eigentlich ersten Elemente, und die Untersuchungen zur Sinnespsychologie. Eine Einleitung von Wilhelm Baumgartner eroffnet den Zugang zu den vorliegenden Schriften.".

A wide-ranging history of the intellectual developments that produced the modern idea of the algorithm. Bringing together the histories of mathematics, computer science, and linguistic thought, Language and the Rise of the Algorithm reveals how recent developments in artificial intelligence are reopening an issue that troubled mathematicians long before the computer age. How do you draw the line between computational rules and the complexities of making systems comprehensible to people? Here Jeffrey M. Binder offers a compelling tour of four (...) visions of universal computation that addressed this issue in very different ways: G. W. Leibniz's calculus ratiocinator; a universal algebra scheme Nicolas de Condorcet designed during the French Revolution; George Boole's nineteenth-century logic system; and the early programming language ALGOL, whose name is short for algorithmic language. These episodes show that symbolic computation has repeatedly become entangled in debates about the nature of communication. To what extent can meaning be controlled by individuals, like the values of a and b in algebra, and to what extent is meaning inevitably social? By attending to this long-neglected question, we come to see that the modern idea of the algorithm is implicated in a long history of attempts to maintain a disciplinary boundary separating technical knowledge from the languages people speak day to day. Machine learning, in its increasing dependence on words, now places this boundary in jeopardy, making its stakes all the more urgent to understand. The idea of the algorithm is a levee holding back the social complexity of language, and it is about to break. This book is about the flood that inspired its construction. (shrink)

This essay examines how Ngugi wa Thiong'o, East Africa's most prominent writer, treats the landscape as a fundamental social phenomenon in two of his most important novels, A Grain of Wheat and Petals of Blood. Basing his ideas in an ecological theory of landscape aesthetics resembling one recently developed in America, Ngugi understands that ability to control and manipulate a landscape defines a society. Nostalgia for the landscape lost to colonialism and to the corrupting and alienating influences of international capitalism (...) needs to be replaced by its progressive evaluation as it is reshaped by collective action for a new future. Alienation from, and loss of responsibility for, the land may be a major factor contributing to Africa's environmental problems. Ngugi 's position casts doubt on professional land management's ultimate ability to influence the shape of the landscape in the face of the collective social will. (shrink)

While seeking novel food sources to feed the increasing population of the globe, several alternatives have been discussed, including algae, fungi or in vitro meat. The increasingly propagated usage of farmed insects for human nutrition raises issues regarding food safety, consumer information and animal protection. In line with law, insects like any other animals must not be reared or manipulated in a way that inflicts unnecessary pain, distress or harm on them. Currently, there is a great need for research in (...) the area of insect welfare, especially regarding species-specific needs, health, farming systems and humane methods of killing. Recent results from neurophysiological, neuroanatomical and behavioral sciences prompt caution when denying consciousness and therefore the likelihood of presence of pain and suffering or something closely related to it to insects. From an animal protection point of view, these issues should be satisfyingly solved before propagating and establishing intensive husbandry systems for insects as a new type of mini-livestock factory farming. (shrink)

Our aim with this descriptive phenomenological study was to identify and describe the essential meaning structure in the experience of postpartum depression . We interviewed four women diagnosed with major depression and analyzed the data with Giorgi’s descriptive phenomenological method. Our analysis revealed two essential meaning structures of PPD. The first structure describes the mother as thrown into a looming, dangerous world, coupled with a restricted, heavy body that hindered her attunement to her baby. Tormented by anxiety, guilt and shame, (...) she tried to deal with her pain by analytical reflection and social isolation. The second structure describes sudden lapses into intense feelings of alienation from the self, the baby, and from the social and material world. With a distorted primordial self-awareness, the mother no longer felt that she existed as herself in the world. We reflect on these findings using the insights of Fuchs, Van den Berg, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. (shrink)

The notion of antifragility, an attribute of systems that makes them thrive under variable conditions, has recently been proposed by Nassim Taleb in a business context. This idea requires the ability of such systems to ‘tinker’, i.e., to creatively respond to changes in their environment. A fairly obvious example of this is natural selection-driven evolution. In this ubiquitous process, an original entity, challenged by an ever-changing environment, creates variants that evolve into novel entities. Analyzing functions that are essential during stationary-state (...) life yield examples of entities that may be antifragile. One such example is proteins with flexible regions that can undergo functional alteration of their side residues or backbone and thus implement the tinkering that leads to antifragility. This in-built property of the cell chassis must be taken into account when considering construction of cell factories driven by engineering principles. (shrink)

For more than 20 years, research has proven the beneficial effect of natural frequencies when it comes to solving Bayesian reasoning tasks (Gigerenzer & Hoffrage, 1995). In a recent meta-analysis, McDowell & Jacobs (2017) showed that presenting a task in natural frequency format increases performance rates to 24% compared to only 4% when the same task is presented in probability format. Nevertheless, on average three quarters of participants in their meta-analysis failed to obtain the correct solution for such a task (...) in frequency format. In this paper, we present an empirical study on what participants typically do wrong when confronted with natural frequencies. We found that many of them did not actually use natural frequencies for their calculations, but translated them back into complicated probabilities instead. This switch from the intuitive presentation format to a less intuitive calculation format will be discussed within the framework of psychological theories (e.g., the Einstellung effect). (shrink)

In the present paper we empirically investigate the psychometric properties of some of the most famous statistical and logical cognitive illusions from the “heuristics and biases” research program by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, who nearly 50 years ago introduced fascinating brain teasers such as the famous Linda problem, the Wason card selection task, and so-called Bayesian reasoning problems (e.g., the mammography task). In the meantime, a great number of articles has been published that empirically examine single cognitive illusions, theoretically (...) explaining people’s faulty thinking, or proposing and experimentally implementing measures to foster insight and to make these problems accessible to the human mind. Yet these problems have thus far usually been empirically analyzed on an individual-item level only (e.g., by experimentally comparing participants’ performance on various versions of one of these problems). In this paper, by contrast, we examine these illusions as a group and look at the ability to solve them as a psychological construct. Based on an sample ofN= 2,643 Luxembourgian school students of age 16–18 we investigate the internal psychometric structure of these illusions (i.e., Are they substantially correlated? Do they form a reflexive or a formative construct?), their connection to related constructs (e.g., Are they distinguishable from intelligence or mathematical competence in a confirmatory factor analysis?), and the question of which of a person’s abilities can predict the correct solution of these brain teasers (by means of a regression analysis). (shrink)

This study investigated the effects of the 6 Minutes Journal, a commercial diary combining several positive psychology interventions, including gratitude, goal-setting, and self-affirmation exercises, on several mental health outcome measures. In a randomized controlled trial, university students were randomly assigned to one of two groups: 6MT and a wait list control group. Participants in the intervention group were instructed to follow the instructions of the 6MT for 4 weeks. Participants in both groups completed measures of perceived stress, positive and negative (...) affect, self-efficacy and resilience at baseline, after 2, and 4 weeks. We used path-analyses with autoregressive and cross-lagged effects to test our hypotheses of the effects of the 6MT. Participants in the intervention group reported decreased levels of perceived stress and negative affect, as well as increased levels of resilience and self-efficacy compared to the control group. Positive affect was not statistically significantly influenced. The data showed a statistically significant increased levels of self-efficacy and resilience only after 4 weeks, suggesting that changing these constructs needs more time. The 6-minute diary does not appear to make individuals fundamentally more positive. However, the intervention may have a protective function against negative influences on well-being. (shrink)

Women are twice as likely to be diagnosed with a depressive disorder as men. Before trying to explain this difference, we must first understand how women experience depression. We explore the phenomenon of depression through women’s experiences, using Giorgi’s descriptive phenomenological method. An essential meaning structure describes the development of depression: The women find themselves entrapped in a personal mission which had backfired. Motivated by shame and guilt from the past, they overinvest in work or others’ emotions to relieve internal (...) pain. They feel deeply sensitive to, and responsible for, other persons’ distress while ignoring their own feelings and needs. Gradually their emotional body grows awry and acts in increasingly alienating and threatening ways. Ultimately they feel forced to submerge in their emotional body; they succumb to depression. We reflect on this structure on the basis of Minkowski, Scheler, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, and in relation to contemporary research on depression. (shrink)

In this book, Binder shows that at the heart of the most prominent arguments in favour of value-neutral approaches to overall freedom lies the value freedom has for human agency and development. Far from leading to the adoption of a value-neutral approach, however, ascribing importance to freedom’s agency value requires one to adopt a refined value-based approach. Binder employs an axiomatic framework in order to develop such an approach. She shows that a focus on freedom’s agency value has (...) far reaching consequences for existing results in the freedom ranking literature: it requires one to move beyond a person’s given all-things-considered preferences to the values underlying a person’s preference formation. Furthermore, it requires, as Binder argues, one to account for those differences between choice options which really matter to people. Binder illustrates the implications of her analysis for the evaluation of public policy and human development with the capability approach: only if sufficient importance is ascribed to freedom’s agency value can the capability approach keep its promises. ​. (shrink)

Das vorliegende Werk ist ein weiteres Zeugnis von Brentanos lebenslanger Auseinandersetzung mit Aristoteles, seinem philosophischen Lehrer par excellence. Auch die literarische Fehde mit dem bedeutenden Berliner Philosophiehistoriker Eduard Zeller (1814-1908) währte Jahrzehnte, ja über den Tod Zellers hinaus. In dieser Kontroverse ging es zunächst um Brentanos These vom Kreatianismus des Aristoteles, in der er Zellers Ansicht, der menschliche nous sei Teil des absoluten Denkens der aristotelischen Gottheit und somit ewig, zurückweist und darzulegen versucht, das der nous poietikos von dieser unmittelbar (...) erschaffen wird und somit nicht präexistieren kann. In dieser Auseinandersetzung kommen aber auch ganz unterschiedliche Ansichten über das Wesen der Philosophie und ihrer Geschichte zum Ausdruck. In den Augen Brentanos war Zellers Vorgehensweise ein verkehrter Historismus, während für ihn selbst die Geschichte der Philosophie nur dann eine Berechtigung hat, wenn sie in den Dienst der sachlichen Forschung tritt. (shrink)

Terence Irwin's edition of the Nicomachean Ethics offers more aids to the reader than are found in any modern English translation. It includes an Introduction, headings to help the reader follow the argument, explanatory notes on difficult or important passages, and a full glossary explaining Aristotle's technical terms. The Third Edition offers additional revisions of the translation as well as revised and expanded versions of the notes, glossary, and Introduction. Also new is an appendix featuring translated selections from related texts (...) of Aristotle. (shrink)

This paper examines the existential context of physical and mental health. Hans Georg Gadamer and The World Health Organization’s conceptualizations are discussed, and current medicalized and idealized views on health are critically examined. The existential dimension of health is explored in the light of theories of selfhood consisting of different parts, Irvin Yalom’s approach to “ultimate concerns” and Martin Heidegger’s conceptualization of “existentials.” We often become aware of health as an existential concern during times of illness, and health and illness (...) can co-exist. The paper discusses how existential suffering in Western culture is described, to an increasing degree, as disorders or psychological deficits, and perfectionistic health goals easily can become a problem. We seek to avoid suffering rather than relate to it, with all the tension that may create. The paper argues that suffering is an unavoidable aspect of people’s experience of their lives, and actively relating to suffering must be regarded as a fundamental aspect of health. The need and usefulness of a concept of “existential health” is discussed. (shrink)