Tuberculosis (TB) is a potentially fatal infectious disease that, in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ), inequitably affects Asian, Pacific, Middle Eastern, Latin American, and African (MELAA), and Māori people. Medical research involving genome sequencing of TB samples enables more nuanced understanding of disease strains and their transmission. This could inform highly specific health interventions. However, the collection and management of TB isolate samples for research are currently informed by monocultural biomedical models often lacking key ethical considerations. Drawing on a qualitative kaupapa (...) Māori–consistent study, this paper reports on preliminary discussions with groups of Māori, Pacific, and Afghan people in NZ, whose communities have been harmed by TB and TB stigma. Participants’ discussions highlight key concerns and meanings that ought to inform the development of guidelines and a more robust consultative process for the governance of how TB isolate samples are collected and used both retrospectively and in future research. We argue for ethical processes to be culturally nuanced and community-generated, flexible and meaningful, and situated in relation to the physical and symbolic effects of TB. We discuss the significance of Indigenous data sovereignty, rights, and kāwanatanga (governorship) in shaping a multicultural data sovereignty model. (shrink)

This excellent work defends the radical nature of Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology from those who want to turn it into a kind of realism. The influence of such "revisionists" "is so strong at present that the historical Husserl threatens to vanish from sight completely". Husserl, de Boer insists, eventually defined consciousness as absolute being which constitutes the world within itself. "Husserl’s entire development becomes incomprehensible when this idealism is denied". According to de Boer, Franz Brentano convinced the young Husserl that the (...) aim of philosophy was to find a way of anchoring norms in the face of relativism and historicism. Brentano sought to use scientific methodology to found a descriptive psychology which could in turn form the basis for normative sciences. Like Brentano, Husserl was taken with the idea of developing a "rigorous science" of consciousness which would help provide rational a priori values in the face of the irrational world-views so prevalent in the first part of the century. Husserl’s turn away from his early empiricism and naturalism and his eventual adoption of transcendental idealism follows from his attempt to solve three problems in Brentano’s work: 1) the relation between things in themselves and the immanent intentional object; 2) the method for founding a priori truths; 3) the naturalistic attitude inherent in Brentano’s view that positivistic-genetic psychology and phenomenological psychology have equal value in the study of consciousness. Husserl solved the second problem with the notion of the intuition of essences. He solved the first and third problems with the discovery of transcendental idealism in 1908. De Boer maintains that the denial of the thing in itself, which is still presupposed in the naturalistic standpoint operating in Logische Untersuchungen, "is the most important step of all in Husserl’s development". The notion of the thing in itself is common to the naturalistic-dogmatic belief that on the one hand there is a realm of objects independent of consciousness and that on the other hand there is consciousness which has some experience of those objects. In LU, Husserl simply suspended the question of the relation of the thing in itself to consciousness because he still regarded the latter as a kind of island within the "real" world, to which natural science alone has direct access. Despite the fact that LU rejected the naturalizing of ideas, LU continued to regard consciousness in a naturalistic way. Only the "Copernican revolution" of transcendental idealism enabled Husserl to see that the foundation of all being is absolute mind or consciousness. Because consciousness "constitutes" reality in a creative and productive sense, there is no point in speaking of a "thing in itself." Husserl’s transcendental reduction does not deny "reality," but merely rejects the naturalistic tendency to absolutize it. (shrink)

This book is yet another in the recent growth of studies of Kant’s "investigation and establishment of the supreme principle of morality." Its aim is stated in the subtitle and again in a number of variations throughout the book. The author examines and objects to the intrusion of Kant’s "official metaphysics" in what he believes is intended to be, but does not succeed in being, a guide to action. He deplores Kant’s unawareness that he was, in fact, a utilitarian. He (...) argues that Kant’s and all rationalistic ethics are teleological. Along the way he confuses Kant’s carefully distinguished supreme good and complete good and ignores—in good part by omitting considerations of the third section of the Groundwork—Kant’s identification of pure practical reason and the good will. Nevertheless, there are some virtues to this study: the analysis of the language of major passages of the first two sections of the Groundwork and, more effective, the presentation of the author’s own view, in the final thirty pages, of the notion of man as an end in himself; this is a view which Hutchings thinks Kant should have had but also one which many readers have long since attributed to him. (shrink)

F.-W. von Herrmann was a close associate of Heidegger during the final four years of the philosopher’s life. During that time, he not only had many conversations with him, but was also granted access to many writings just now appearing in the Gesamtausgabe. As a result of his proximity to Heidegger, as well as to his writings, von Herrmann seems in a unique position to provide an authoritative account of Heidegger’s work.

The purpose of the study is to identify a common theoretical basis for the study of human life as capital and unconditional higher value. Theoretical basis is based on the value-laden and revised structural constructivism, provided by the French philosopher and sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, critical analysis of the concepts of capital as the embodiment of social expectations, the biological concept of the value of human life, as well as the concepts of its sanctity. Originality. It is proved that one should (...) not consider the value of human life as capital only but instead takes into account its different value interpretations, especially when forming the social identity of a person. Moreover, in each of the value systems, the value of human life can be recognized as unconditional, which does not prevent the coexistence of such different value interpretations within the framework of one social identity, which then inevitably becomes a multiple social identity. Conclusions. Human life cannot be considered as a result of integrating economic expectations into the concept of "advertising" capital: first, expectations may well be inadequate; second, expectations by themselves are not directly related to capital; third, expectations do not necessarily lead to development; fourth, one should clearly distinguish between the spontaneous "expectations" and the values that express people’s strong motivation as members of social communities. The multiplicity of possible cultural conditions that affirm the unconditional value of life indicates that this unconditionality is always relevant rather than absolute. The multiple social identities could be used to add value to the protection of human life, the affirmation of multiple social identities is a means of affirming the unconditional value of human life – it is unconditional in several alternative ways. (shrink)

We use Marya Schechtman’s Narrative Self-Constitution View to support the widespread idea that food can contribute to the construction and expression of our identities and be used to understand others. What foods we consume can be one such way to construct our identities as food itself can have different values: ethically sourced, healthy, culturally significant, etc. However, the ability to constitute one’s own identity in this way depends on the ability to autonomously choose what we consume. We argue that most (...) consumers have much less control over their own consumption habits than is typically assumed (indeed, much of the literature on food and identity relies on the assumption) and thus consumers have diminished autonomy with respect to identity-constitution. We focus on the effects of three such autonomy compromising practices: food impositions, which are social pressures on food choice; manipulative marketing; and impediments to access. Together these practices diminish second-order endorsement of food-related values, generate false beliefs about what one is eating, and create social, economic, or physical barriers which limit access to desired foods. There are, however, spaces where consumers are fighting back against cultural norms and agribusiness and changing their own relationship(s) with consumption, thereby exercising increased autonomy over their food and their identity. (shrink)

On modern philosophy, with reference to the ideology of Sir Muhammad Iqbal, 1877-1938.

Collected interviews of philosophers of 20th century, chiefly about the modern philosophy and its theories.

A new probability interpretation of interference phenomena in the double-slit experiment is proposed. It differs from the standard interpretation (based on elementary events happening in complementary, mutually exclusive setups—arrivals of waves to the screen when one of the slits is closed) which encounters the “paradox” that the law of total probability is violated. This new interpretation is free of such difficulties and paradoxes since it is based on compatible elementary events (events happening in the same setup in which happenall events (...) considered—arrivals of quantons to the screen when both slits are open). Quantum objects—quantons—possess simultaneously particle and wave properties. Compatible statistical interpretation synthesizes in a consistent way the superposition principle for waves and the law of total probability applied to compatible events. Such synthesis is a theoretical expression of de Broglie's observation, now fully confirmed by experiments, that the interference fringes obtained on a photographic plate result from an infinite number of tiny local spots which display arrival of quantons, while the set of fringes is a statistical effect of the wave aspect. (shrink)

The study of the motion of the magnetic top—a classical spherical top which carries magnetic moment proportional to its angular momentum, is motivated and inspired by the quantum mechanical relation between spin angular momentum and spin magnetic moment. Inversely, the magnetic top, taken to be the classical model of quantum spin, implies the description of spin states by probability amplitudes of the top orientation angles, instead of by Pauli spinors. This opens new possibilities for the interpretation of many interesting spin (...) experiments which serve as tests of basic principles of quantum mechanics and of the postulates of the quantum theory of measurement. (shrink)

Considering the genesis of "critical theory" as an ideological current, we discover its deeper roots in the sociopolitical orientations of German social democracy between the two world wars. We have in mind: a) the negation of the Leninist analysis of imperialism and the Leninist theory of socialist revolution; b) the loss of faith in the revolutionary possibilities of the working class ; c) the fetishism of the economic factor , the isolation of economics from politics, culture and ideology; d) the (...) idea of Eurocentrism; e) an elitist position. (shrink)

The realist interpretations of quantum theory, proposed by de Broglie and by Bohm, are re-examined and their differences, especially concerning many-particle systems and the relativistic regime, are explored. The impact of the recently proposed experiments of Vigier et al. and of Ghose et al. on the debate about the interpretation of quantum mechanics is discussed. An indication of how de Broglie and Bohm would account for these experimental results is given.

In many research studies, tumor biopsies are an unavoidable requirement for achieving key scientific aims. Yet some commentators view mandatory research biopsies as coercive and suggest they should be optional, or at least optional until further data are obtained regarding their scientific usefulness. Further complicating the ethical picture is the fact that some research biopsies offer a potential for clinical benefit to trial participants. We interviewed and surveyed a convenience sample of participants in phase I clinical trials at a single (...) institution. Our primary aim was to describe phase I participants’ understanding of whether a research biopsy offered them the prospect of medical benefit. We also endeavored to describe participants’ views about biopsies—specifically, the benefits of biopsies, if any, and whether biopsies were acceptable, risky, or discouraged trial participation. Finally, we collected data on demographics and attitudes to see if any strong correlations with misunderstanding, acceptability, or riskiness existed. Overall, the respondents tended to view research biopsies as acceptable, though they did not succeed in identifying the lack of benefit of a research biopsy. These findings call for renewed efforts in consent conversations and documents to carefully describe the benefits, or lack thereof, of research biopsies. (shrink)

We use joint probabilities to analyze the EPR argument in the Bohm's example of spins.(1) The properties of distribution functions for two, three, or more noncommuting spin components are explicitly studied and their limitations are pointed out. Within the statistical ensemble interpretation of quantum theory (where only statements about repeated events can be made), the incompleteness of quantum theory does not follow, as the consistent use of joint probabilities shows. This does not exclude a completion of quantum mechanics, going beyond (...) it, by a more general theory of single events, using hidden variables, for example. (shrink)

Good and evil; religious aspects; Islam.

Islamic ethics and Koranic teaching, aspects of Islam.