Whatever the attitude one takes to the review in Physics Today , the fact remains that a prominent American journal in physics has voiced an opinion on a book devoted to philosophical problems of fundamental theory - at the front line of contemporary physics - written jointly by natural scientists and Marxist philosophers. The appearance of a review is a commonplace event in the life of science, but in the case before us the matter is not so simple. Suffice it (...) to remember the existence of a curtain in the scientific literature of the West, the function of which, some say, is to separate "pure" science from Marxism. (shrink)

In the history of philosophy, the problem of the simple and the complex, as it pertains to the universe, presents itself as the problem of the substance of the world, from which the concrete diversity of things comes into being. Two fundamental conceptions are to be seen in investigation of this latter problem in the history of materialism and natural science. The first of them, which essentially presupposes a dialectical understanding of development, regards the world as one, for all the (...) variety of its naturally developing matter. The second, which in its completed form comprises the line of development of mechanical materialism, recognizes only a coming together and separation of permanent principles on which the universe is based. (shrink)

Contemporary physicists, in creating theories adequate to nature's patterns of movement and development, speak the language of dialectics whether willingly or unwillingly. Even those whose personal outlook is at variance with dialectical philosophy acknowledge this in their own way. Thus Heisenberg states that inquiry into the foundations of the quantum theory, especially as carried out by Bohr, has features reminiscent of Hegelian philosophy. And, to quote Pauli, "dialectics is that mutual game of two opponents which is typical of the Copenhagen (...) interpretation of quantum mechanics." Bohr himself, while discussing the quantum theory, speaks of "profoundly true statements the opposites of which likewise contain deep verities.". (shrink)

Natural science, and physics as a branch of it, poses the goal of depicting nature as it is, without arbitrary additions by the intelligence cognizing it. This basic spirit of natural science explains why its outstanding representatives, subjectively remote from conscious dialectics, unconsciously apply its principles and postulates as they discover laws of nature and create new theories. One need only recall Engels' words on the discovery of the periodic table by Mendeleyev, who "by unconsciously employing Hegel's law of transition (...) from quantity into quality, performed a major feat in science." The same may be said, mutatis mutandis, about the creation of the theories of relativity and quantum mechanics. (shrink)

In 2017, Italy passed a law that provides for a systematic discipline on informed consent, advance directives, and advance care planning. It ranges from decisions contextual to clinical necessity through the tool of consent/refusal to decisions anticipating future events through the tools of shared care planning and advance directives. Nothing is said in the law regarding the issue of physician assisted suicide. Following the DJ Fabo case, the Italian Constitutional Court declared the constitutional illegitimacy of article 580 of the criminal (...) code in the part in which it does not exclude the punishment of those who facilitate the suicide when the decision has been freely and autonomously made by a person kept alive by life-support treatments and suffering from an irreversible pathology, the source of physical or psychological suffering that he/she considers intolerable, but fully capable of making free and conscious decisions. Such conditions and methods of execution must be verified by a public structure of the national health service, after consulting the territorially competent ethics committee. This statement admits, within strict and regulated bounds, physician assisted suicide, so widening the range of end-of-life decisions for Italian patients. Future application and critical topics will be called into question by the Italian legislator. (shrink)

Parallel dual language text (German and English).

These studies examined whether having thoughts related to an event before it occurs leads people to infer that they caused the event— even when such causation might otherwise seem magical. In Study 1, people perceived that they had harmed another person via a voodoo hex. These perceptions were more likely among those who had first been induced to harbor evil thoughts about their victim. In Study 2, spectators of a peer’s basketball-shooting performance were more likely to perceive that they had (...) influenced his success if they had first generated positive visualizations consistent with that success. Observers privy to those spectators’ visualizations made similar attributions about the spectators’ influence. Finally, addi- tional studies suggested that these results occur even when the thought-about outcome is viewed as unwanted by the thinker and even in field settings where the relevant outcome is occurring as part of a live athletic competition. (shrink)

Because corporate social responsibility (CSR) is potentially beneficial for companies, it is important to understand the factors that improve a company’s CSR practice. Scholars hypothesize that facilitating learning organization characteristics, which are divided in characteristics at the organizational and the operational level, may improve CSR implementation. These characteristics stimulate companies and their members to be critical, learn from the past, and embrace change, but there is limited empirical evidence of this approach. This study addresses this gap by surveying 280 CSR (...) professionals and performing bootstrap mediation analyses to test multiple hypotheses. Learning organization characteristics at the organizational level, play a key role in supporting CSR implementation: leadership for learning, system connection, and group learning show a direct relationship with CSR implementation. It is striking that the role of the learning organization characteristics at the operational level is only indirect; the organizational characteristics mediate their relationship with CSR implementation. (shrink)

Some theorists, worried about liberalism’s potential as a foundation for public health ethics, suggest that republicanism provides a better background of justification for public health policies, interventions, etc. In this article, this suggestion is put to the test, and it is argued that (i) contemporary (civic) republicanism and liberalism are not nearly as opposed as it is sometimes suggested, and that (ii) the kind of republicanism which one leading scholar in the field, Bruce Jennings, as an alternative to liberalism, does (...) not reflect the contemporary understanding of republicanism as held by, e.g. Phillip Pettit et al. (shrink)

The study ascertained (1) whether an observer's scope of justice with reference to either the moral agent or the target person of a moral act, would affect his/her judgements of the ethicality of the act, and (2) whether observer judgements of ethicality parallel the moral agent's decision processes in systematically evaluating the intensity of the moral issue. A scenario approach was used. Results affirmed both research questions. Discussions covered the implications of the findings for the underlying cognitive processes of moral (...) judgements, for the link between judgements of fairness and ethicality, as well as for the debate of ethical absolutism versus relativism. (shrink)

Provability, Computability and Reflection.