Sentences containing pronouns and indefinite noun phrases can be said toexpress open propositions, propositions which display gaps to be filled.This paper addresses the question what is the linguistic content ofthese expressions, what information they can be said to provide to ahearer, and in what sense the information of a speaker can be said tosupport their utterance. We present and motivate first order notions ofcontent, update and support. The three notions are each defined in acompositional fashion and brought together within a (...) single and coherentframework. (shrink)

In this article some of the presuppositions that underly the current ideas about decision making capacity, autonomy and independence are critically examined. The focus is on chronic disorders, especially on chronic physical disorders. First, it is argued that the concepts of decision making competence and autonomy, as they are usually applied to the problem of legal (in)competence in the mentally ill, need to be modified and adapted to the situation of the chronically (physically) ill. Second, it is argued that autonomy (...) and dependence must not be considered as two mutually exclusive categories. It is suggested that decision making may take on the form of a more or less conscious decision not to be involved in making all kinds of explicit and deliberate decisions. Elaborating on Agich's distinction between ideal and actual autonomy, the concept of Socratic autonomy is introduced. (shrink)

For a few decades, patients with Parkinson's disease have been treated with intracerebral transplantations of fetal mesencephalic tissue. The results of open trials have been variable. Double blind, placebo-controlled studies have recently been started in order to further investigate the efficacy of this new medical technique. In this paper we challenge the need for sham surgery in neurotransplantation research on PD patients. Considerations regarding the research subjects' informed consent, therapeutic misconception, the integrity of the human body, and the assessment of (...) risks and benefits argue against sham surgery for patients with PD. Moreover, there is an alternative, less harmful mode of research that can provide the same or comparable scientific evidence. A plea is made for intrapatient research based on quantitative measurements of the patient's pre- and post-operative condition combined with similar research on a reference group of patients who have received the standard treatment. (shrink)

Medicine does not usually consider the human body from an aesthetic point of view. This article explores the notion of the lived body as aesthetic object in anthropological medicine, concentrating on the views of Buytendijk and Straus on human uprightness and gracefulness. It is argued that their insights constitute a counter-balance to the way the human body is predominantly approached in medicine and medical ethics. In particular, (1) the relationship between anthropological, aesthetic and ethical norms, (2) the possible danger of (...) a naturalistic fallacy, (3) the implications for the care of disabled people and (4) the intrinsic aesthetic quality of the human body are dealt with. (shrink)

This article provides a brief explanation of Robert Kane's indeterministic, event‐causal libertarian theory of freedom and responsibility. It is noted that a number of authors have criticized libertarian theories, such as Kane's, by presenting the problem of luck. After noting how Kane has tried to answer this problem in his recent writings, the author goes on to explain Ishtiyaque Haji's recent version of the luck argument. The author considers three possible Kanian replies to Haji's luck argument and argues that the (...) third reply can adequately answer the luck objection. It is also noted that the third reply requires making some significant alterations to Kane's theory that would also help him resolve certain problems with his views about responsibility for character. (shrink)

Periodic attacks of uncertain origin, where the clinical presentationresembles epilepsy but there is no evidence of a somatic disease, arecalled Pseudo-Epilepsy or Pseudo-Epileptic Attack Disorder (PEAD). PEADmay be called a `non-disease', i.e. a disorder on the fringes ofestablished disease patterns, because it lacks a rationalpathophysiological explanation. The first aim of this article is tocriticize the idea, common in medical science, that diseases are realentities which exist separately from the patient, waiting to bediscovered by the doctor. We argue that doctor and (...) patient construct adisease, and that the construction of the disease PEAD includes manynormative evaluations. The second aim is to provide insight into thesuffering of patients with PEAD. We focus on three aspects of thepatient, identity, autonomy and responsibility. We present somecharacteristic descriptions of (pseudo-)epileptic attacks by FjodorDostoevsky, Gustave Flaubert and Thomas Mann. We argue that diagnosingPEAD reduces a meaningful life event into an insignificant, thoughintriguing, medical phenomenon, and that the patient will not benefitfrom being diagnosed as having PEAD. (shrink)

I distinguish between two theses, DPJ and DGP. DPJ asserts that one’s justification for accepting particular epistemic propositions positively depends on one’s being justified in believing general epistemic principles. DGP claims that one’s justification in believing general epistemic propositions positively depends on one’s being justified in believing particular epistemic propositions. I claim that methodism accepts DPJ and rejects DGP and particularism accepts DGP and rejects DPJ. I argue that we should reject DGP and methodism roughly because these views imply that (...) many of us do not know epistemic propositions that we do know. This point is made by Roderick Chisholm in The Problem of the Criterion and challenged by Robert Amico. I consider Chisholm’s arguments and Amico’s objections. Finally, I argue that even if we reject DPJ and methodism, we need not embrace particularism, since we could reject both DPJ and DGP. (shrink)

Illative combinatory logic consists of the theory of combinators or lambda calculus extended by extra constants (and corresponding axioms and rules) intended to capture inference. In a preceding paper, [2], we considered 4 systems of illative combinatory logic that are sound for first order intuitionistic propositional and predicate logic. The interpretation from ordinary logic into the illative systems can be done in two ways: following the propositions-as-types paradigm, in which derivations become combinators, or in a more direct way, in which (...) derivations are not translated. Both translations are closely related in a canonical way. In the cited paper we proved completeness of the two direct translations. In the present paper we prove that also the two indirect translations are complete. These proofs are direct whereas in another version, [3], we proved completeness by showing that the two corresponding illative systems are conservative over the two systems for the direct translations. Moreover we shall prove that one of the systems is also complete for predicate calculus with higher type functions. (shrink)

O presente artigo tem como tema a relação entre a ética, a teoria estética e a filosofia da arte de Schopenhauer. Analisaremos essa questão buscando explicar os elementos envolvidos no processo de aproximação e comunicação entre esses âmbitos, examinando a discussão sobre o tema nos principais teóricos e obras do filósofo. Daremos os seguintes passos: em primeiro lugar, evidenciaremos o papel preponderante da ética dentro do sistema filosófico de Schopenhauer, mostrando que ela é uma importante referência para as demais questões (...) tratadas por ele, inclusive para a discussão estética; em segundo lugar, mostraremos que a postura metodológica do filósofo se reflete na importância conferida por ele às artes e nas singularidades de sua estética, que, por sua vez, facilita a aproximação entre filosofia da arte e ética; finalmente, demonstraremos a presença de algumas questões morais na estética schopenhaueriana, revelando que ela pode ser compreendida como uma preparação para a ética. (shrink)

Pelo menos desde o século XIX, a relação entre o pessimismo e a política tem suscitado o debate entre diversos filósofos, cujas leituras têm apontado para compreensões bastante opostas. Por um lado, há a leitura tradicional, que aproxima Schopenhauer, o fundador do pessimismo moderno, de uma concepção política conservadora, como é o caso das críticas feitas por Lukács. Por outro lado, há uma apropriação crítica, por parte de uma assim chamada “esquerda schopenhaueriana”, de aspectos desse pessimismo, como fazem Mainländer, Lütkehaus, (...) Horkheimer e a escola de Teoria Crítica. Neste artigo, buscamos analisar algumas categorias de pensamento político, social e econômico de Schopenhauer e as distintas leituras de sua filosofia. (shrink)

Readings of the Platform Sūtra. Edited by Morten Schlütter and Stephen F. Teiser. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012. Pp. ix + 220. $27. The Platform Sūtra of the Sixth Patriarch: The Text of the Tun-Huang Manuscript. Translated by Philip B. Yampolsky with a new foreword by Morten Schlütter. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012. Pp. xvi + 220 + 30. $32.

Un texto no siempre puede ser traducido sin traicionar el sentido del original. Una novela juvenil concebida con el propósito de transmitir conocimientos contendrá a menudo informaciones que un público coetáneo que vive en otro país no necesitará, y, al revés, puede haber que añadir en la traducción informaciones específicas para el público destinatario ausentes en la novela original. La reflexión en torno a la resolución de las dificultades encontradas en la traducción de cuatro textos, las distintas tipologías traductivas utilizadas (...) y su generalización aportan al eterno dilema traducción – adaptación las observaciones realizadas desde la novela juvenil con contenido científico. (shrink)

This book addresses some basic questions about intrinsic value: What is it? What has it? What justifies our beliefs about it? In the first six chapters the author defends the existence of a plurality of intrinsic goods, the thesis of organic unities, the view that some goods are 'higher' than others, and the view that intrinsic value can be explicated in terms of 'fitting' emotional attitudes. The final three chapters explore the justification of our beliefs about intrinsic value, including coherence (...) theories and the idea that some value beliefs are warranted on the basis of emotional experience. Professor Lemos defends the view that some value beliefs enjoy 'modest' a priori justification. The book is intended primarily for professional philosophers and their graduate students working in ethics, value theory and epistemology. (shrink)

We discuss here a series of testable hypotheses concerning the role of chromosome folding into topologically associating domains (TADs). Several lines of evidence suggest that segmental packaging of chromosomal neighborhoods may underlie features of chromatin that span large domains, such as heterochromatin blocks, association with the nuclear lamina and replication timing. By defining which DNA elements preferentially contact each other, the segmentation of chromosomes into TADs may also underlie many properties of long‐range transcriptional regulation. Several observations suggest that TADs can (...) indeed provide a structural basis to regulatory landscapes, by controlling enhancer sharing and allocation. We also discuss how TADs may shape the evolution of chromosomes, by causing maintenance of synteny over large chromosomal segments. Finally we suggest a series of experiments to challenge these ideas and provide concrete examples illustrating how they could be practically applied. (shrink)

A Pragmatic Approach to Libertarian Free Will argues that the kind of free will required for moral responsibility and just desert is libertarian free will. It is a source of great controversy whether such a libertarian view is coherent and whether we should believe that we have such free will. This book explains and defends Robert Kane¿s conception of libertarian free will while departing from it in certain key respects. It is argued that a suitably modified Kanean model of free (...) will can be shown to be conceptually coherent. In addition, it is argued that while we lack sufficient epistemic grounds supporting belief in the existence of libertarian free will, we may still be justified in believing in it for moral reasons. As such, the book engages critically with the works of a growing number of philosophers who argue that we should jettison belief in the existence of desert-grounding free will and the practices of praise and blame and reward and punishment which it supports. (shrink)

During the last decade a “technical” approach has become increasingly influential in health care priority setting. The various country reports illustrate, however, that non-technical considerations cannot be avoided. As they often remain implicit in health care package decisions, this paper aims to make these normative judgements an explicit part of the procedure. More specifically, it aims to integrate different models of distributive justice as well as the principle of solidarity in four different phases of a decision-making procedure, and to identify (...) important moral choices which present themselves. First four important justice models are discussed, then a justification is given for their inclusion in a four-step decision making procedure. This is followed by a discussion of different justice and solidarity problems—with their inherent conceptual difficulties in each of these stages. The paper concludes with a summary of the major moral choices that are to be made in health care package decisions. (shrink)

What is the right thing to do? -- "You have nothing to fear if you've done nothing wrong" -- Between culpable and blameless -- Are all mistakes equal? -- Report, disclose, protect, learn -- A just culture in your organization -- The criminalization of human error -- Is criminalization bad for safety? -- Without prosecutors, there would be no crime -- Three questions for your just culture -- Why do we blame?

Over the last decades, the proliferation of ICTs and capitalist markets has created a new social-historical reality for communication, production and societal organisation, while social inequality has deepened. In this context, alternative forms of organisation based on the commons have emerged, challenging the core values of capitalism. Within this new form of egalitarian and transnational collaborative networks, a new concept of social coexistence has been proposed: cosmolocalism. This article presents the genealogy of cosmolocalism and compares it to previous conceptual universalist (...) reconfigurations, namely cosmopolitanism and internationalism. While the current discourse on cosmolocalism focuses on production and distribution, its political dynamics and limitations remain unexplored. Our ultimate goal is to open a path of inquiry for further reflection and deliberation. (shrink)