Hence, argumentation will have an increasing importance in education, both because it is a critical competence that has to be learned, and because argumentation ...

BackgroundEverybody has the right to decide whether to receive specific medical treatment or not and to provide their free, prior and informed consent to do so. As dementia progresses, people with Alzheimer’s dementia (PwAD) can lose their capacity to provide informed consent to complex medical treatment. When the capacity to consent is lost, the autonomy of the affected person can only be guaranteed when an interpretable and valid advance directive exists. Advance directives are not yet common in Germany, and their (...) validity is often questionable. Once the dementia diagnosis has been made, it is assumed to be too late to write an advance directive. One approach used to support the completion of advance directives is ‘Respecting Choices’®—an internationally recognised, evidence-based model of Advance Care Planning (ACP), which, until now, has not been evaluated for the target group of PwAD. This study’s aims include (a) to investigate the proportion of valid advance directives in a memory clinic population of persons with suspected AD, (b) to determine the predictors of valid advance directives, and (c) to examine whether the offer of ACP can increase the proportion of valid advance directives in PwAD.MethodWe intend to recruit at leastN = 250 participants from two memory clinics in 50 consecutive weeks. Of these, the first 25 weeks constitute the baseline phase (no offer of ACP), the following 25 weeks constitute the intervention phase (offer of ACP). The existence and validity of an advance directive will be assessed twice (before and after the memory clinic appointment). Moreover, potential predictors of valid advance directives are assessed.DiscussionThe results of this study will enhance the development of consent procedures for advance directives of PwAD based on the ACP/Respecting Choices (R) approach. Therefore, this project contributes towards increasing the autonomy and inclusion of PwAD and the widespread acceptance of valid advance directives in PwAD.Trial RegistrationDRKS, DRKS00026691, registered 15th of October 2021,https://www.drks.de/drks_web/navigate.do?navigationId=trial.HTML&TRIAL_ID=DRKS00026691. (shrink)

BackgroundThe UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and the reformed guardianship law in Germany, require that persons with a disability, including people with dementia in Alzheimer’s disease (PwAD), are supported in making self-determined decisions. This support is achieved through communication. While content-related communication is a deficit of PwAD, relational aspects of communication are a resource. Research in supported decision-making (SDM) has investigated the effectiveness of different content-related support strategies for PwAD but has only succeeded in improving understanding, (...) which, although one criterion of capacity to consent, is not sufficient to ensure overall capacity to consent. The aim of the ‘spatial intervention study’ of the DECIDE project is to examine an innovative resource-oriented SDM approach that focuses on relational aspects. We hypothesise that talking to PwAD in their familiar home setting (as opposed to a clinical setting) will reduce the complexity of the decision-making process and enhance overall capacity to consent. MethodsPeople with a suspected or confirmed diagnosis of dementia in Alzheimer’s disease will be recruited from two memory clinics (N = 80). We will use a randomised crossover design to investigate the intervention effect of the decision-making place on capacity to consent. Besides reasoning capacity, which is part of overall capacity to consent and will be the primary outcome, various secondary outcomes (e.g., other aspects of capacity to consent, subjective task complexity, decisional conflict) and suspected moderating or mediating variables (e.g., meaning of home, demographic characteristics) will be assessed.DiscussionThe results of the study will be used to develop a new SDM strategy that is based on relational resources for PwAD. If a change in location achieves the anticipated improvement in capacity to consent, future research should focus on implementing this SDM strategy in a cost-effective manner in clinical practice.Trial registration: DRKS00030799. (shrink)

Capacity evaluation has become a widely used assessment device in clinical practice to determine whether patients have the cognitive ability to render their own medical decisions. Such evaluations, which might be better thought of as “capacity challenges,” are generally thought of as benign tools used to facilitate care. This paper proposes that such challenges should be reconceptualized as significant medical interventions with their own set of risks, side effects, and potentially deleterious consequences. As a result, a cost–benefit analysis should be (...) implemented prior to imposing such capacity challenges, and efforts should be made to minimize such challenges in situations where they are unlikely to alter the course of treatment. (shrink)

In this chapter Nathalie Sigot argues that Bentham’s interest in international trade lies in the consideration of the redistributive effects of trade and its consequences on happiness for one’s society. Sigot demonstrates that Bentham’s view on international trade changed between 1786 and 1821, when the principle of the limitation of industry by capital disappeared from his writings. Sigot explains how Bentham’s approach is driven by a focus on security and on a calculus of gains and losses in terms of (...) happiness. (shrink)

Alvin Plantinga has famously argued that metaphysical naturalism is self-defeating, and cannot be rationally accepted. I distinguish between two different ways of understanding this argument, which I call the "probabilistic inference conception", and the "process characteristic conception". I argue that the former is what critics of the argument usually presuppose, whereas most critical responses fail when one assumes the latter conception. To illustrate this, I examine three standard objections to Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism: the Perspiration Objection, the Tu Quoque (...) Objection, and the "Why Can't the Naturalist Just Add a Little Something?" Objection. I show that Plantinga's own responses to these objections fail, and propose counterexamples to his first two principles of defeat. I then go on to construct more adequate responses to these objections, using the distinctions I develop in the first part of the paper. (shrink)

Alvin Plantinga has famously argued that metaphysical naturalism is self-defeating, and cannot be rationally accepted. I distinguish between two different ways of understanding this argument, which I call the "probabilistic inference conception", and the "process characteristic conception". I argue that the former is what critics of the argument usually presuppose, whereas most critical responses fail when one assumes the latter conception. To illustrate this, I examine three standard objections to Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism: the Perspiration Objection, the Tu Quoque (...) Objection, and the "Why Can't the Naturalist Just Add a Little Something?" Objection. I show that Plantinga's own responses to these objections fail, and propose counterexamples to his first two principles of defeat. I then go on to construct more adequate responses to these objections, using the distinctions I develop in the first part of the paper. (shrink)

Dans le cadre de divers contextes insulaires, les auteurs, adoptant des approches exploratoires et interdisciplinaires, analysent les processus de (re)médiation des apprenants au savoir, en situation d'interactions authentiques à l'école et hors de l'école, en intégrant la question des cultures plurielles.

Pacifists and their opponents disagree not only about moral questions, but rather often about factual questions as well—as seen when looking at the controversy surrounding the crisis in Kosovo. According to my reconstruction of pacifism, this is not surprising since the pacifist,legitimately, looks at the facts in the light of her system of value. Her opponent, in turn, looks at the facts in the light of an alternative value system, and the quarrel between the two parties about supposedly descriptive matters (...) never ceases, as there is no objective reality about the war in question that could settle the issue.In my view, the pacifist's value-laden way of looking at reality implicitly obeys three epistemic imperatives. First, the Epistemic Imperative concerning Human Nature ("Resist demonizing the other side; always try to understand the case from the other point of view"). Second, the Epistemic Imperative concerning Non-Violent Alternatives ("Always search for non-violent alternatives to military action"). Third, the Epistemic Imperative concerning Uncontrolled Escalation ("Hone your senses to the uncontrolled, irreversible side effects of military action, particularly to the danger of military escalation leading to another world war"). Objective reality has no way of telling us how far we should go in following these imperatives. Rather, we have to make the decision about how far we are going to take them ourselves. In this way, the pacifist's epistemic imperatives are comparable to Kant's regulative principles. (shrink)

While methodological individualism is a fundamental approach within the social sciences, it is often misunderstood. This highlights the need for a discursive and up-to-date reference work analyzing this approach’s classic arguments and assumptions in the light of contemporary issues in sociology, economics and philosophy. This two-volume handbook presents the first comprehensive overview of methodological individualism. Chapters discuss historical and contemporary debates surrounding this central approach within the social sciences, as well as cutting edge developments related to the individualist tradition with (...) philosophical and scientific implications. Bringing together multiple contributions from the world’s leading experts on this important tradition of theorizing, this collective endeavor provides teachers, researchers and students in sociology, economics, and philosophy with a reliable and critical understanding of the founding principles, key thinkers and intellectual development of MI since the late 19th century. ​. (shrink)

Considered by many to be Abraham Robinson's magnum opus, this book offers an explanation of the development and applications of non-standard analysis by the mathematician who founded the subject. Non-standard analysis grew out of Robinson's attempt to resolve the contradictions posed by infinitesimals within calculus. He introduced this new subject in a seminar at Princeton in 1960, and it remains as controversial today as it was then. This paperback reprint of the 1974 revised edition is indispensable reading for anyone interested (...) in non-standard analysis. It treats in rich detail many areas of application, including topology, functions of a real variable, functions of a complex variable, and normed linear spaces, together with problems of boundary layer flow of viscous fluids and rederivations of Saint-Venant's hypothesis concerning the distribution of stresses in an elastic body. (shrink)

This paper presents explication on how paleontologists reconstruct the past using fossils when _good_ modern analogues are not available. I call these _pastist_ methods to differentiate them from presentist methods in which such analogues are available. I do so by presenting two fossil cases: the problematica and graphoglyptids. I describe a forgotten heuristic, “analogue chaining,” that involves jumping from fossil anomaly to fossil anomaly using one to make sense of the other in successive fashion, using the relations _between fossils_ to (...) guide reconstruction. I relate this to the philosophy of historical sciences in four ways. First, that methods like analogue chaining have a “linearity” meaning that there are limited ways in which to learn about specimens using analogues. Second, that they are intrinsically difficult to notice, i.e. invisible. Third, that linearity and invisibility put pressure on some accounts of optimism about historical sciences. Fourth, our cases provide novel forms of optimism based on epistemic enhancement: the phenomena that some questions regarding an event are _better_ answered millions of years after its occurrence. (shrink)

This paper discusses the establishment of a governance framework to secure the development and deployment of “good AI”, and describes the quest for a morally objective compass to steer it. Asserting that human rights can provide such compass, this paper first examines what a human rights-based approach to AI governance entails, and sets out the promise it propagates. Subsequently, it examines the pitfalls associated with human rights, particularly focusing on the criticism that these rights may be too Western, too individualistic, (...) too narrow in scope and too abstract to form the basis of sound AI governance. After rebutting these reproaches, a plea is made to move beyond the calls for a human rights-based approach, and start taking the necessary steps to attain its realisation. It is argued that, without elucidating the applicability and enforceability of human rights in the context of AI; adopting legal rules that concretise those rights where appropriate; enhancing existing enforcement mechanisms and securing an underlying societal infrastructure that enables human rights in the first place, any human rights-based governance framework for AI risks falling short of its purpose. (shrink)

Nach Morton White können wir die holistische Quine/Duhem-These auf ethische Sätze genauso anwenden wie auf wissenschaftliche. Demzufolge mögen sich die meisten ethische Sätze zwar nicht einzeln testen lassen, wohl aber im Zusammenhang einer kompletten Theorie, die sowohl deskriptive als auch normative Sätze enthält. Ich diskutiere zwei Vorschläge dafür, wie dieser Vergleich durchbuchstabiert werden könnte. Laut Whites eigenem Vorschlag lassen sich einige normative Konsequenzen des Gesamtsystems durch Konfrontation mit den emotionalen Reaktionen des Sprechers testen. Laut meinem Vorschlag sind einige normative Konsequenzen (...) des Systems bereits Beobachtungssätze in Quines Sinn und können genauso getestet werden wie naturwissenschaftliche Beobachtungssätze, nämlich durch Sinneserfahrung. Kurzum, es gibt moralische Beobachtungssätze. Quine bezeichnet diejenigen Sätze als Beobachtungssätze, die alle anwesenden Sprecher einer Gemeinschaft stets gleich beurteilen und die der einzelne Sprecher ausschließlich aufgrund momentaner Sinnesreizung bejaht oder verneint (also unabhängig von Hintergrund-Informationen). In Quines Argument gegen moralische Beobachtungssätze steckt folgender Fehler: Quine glaubt, dass sich moralische Fragen immer nur angesichts von Hintergrund-Informationen beurteilen lassen. Bei vielen moralischen Sätzen mag das so sein; aber es gibt Gegenbeispiele, in denen Hintergrund-Informationen ausgeschaltet sind, z.B. "Dies ist sichtbares Unrecht". (shrink)

The pursuit of knowledge has remained perennial since mankind's earliest days. A born thinker, philosopher, scientist, and discoverer, man has addressed many questions at the very center of life. In attempting to answer such questions, thinkers and philosophers have set forth many convincing (and conflicting) hypotheses, but all agree that achieving knowledge is the route to answering them. In Introduction to World Philosophies: A Chronological Progression, Mirza I. Ashraf describes perplexing philosophies in a simple style. He presents the central (...) ideas of prominent philosophers of the East and West from Zoroaster and Thales to Foucault and Derrida. He attempts to show that without these mentors of societies and civilizations, mankind would never have become what it is today and would not realize its potential for tomorrow. At a time in world history when the global exchange of information is often instantaneous, Ashraf's detailed presentations lead us toward a unified understanding of thought and culture. At this juncture, when the subject of world religions, traditions, and ideologies is at the heart of so much bitterness, these thinkers encourage us to think globally and generate a common approach to humankind's philosophical quest. (shrink)

This paper aims to establish the connection between the theoretical and practical aims of the Office of the Hydrographer of the British Admiralty and Charles Darwin’s (1809–1882) work on coral reefs from 1835 to 1842. I also emphasize the consistent zoological as well as geological reasoning contained in these texts. The Office’s influences have been previously overlooked, despite the Admiralty’s interest in using coral reefs as natural instruments. I elaborate on this by introducing the work of Alexander Dalrymple (1737–1808), the (...) first hydrographer of the Admiralty and a figure who has flown under the radar of the history of coral reef theories. I show that Dalrymple introduced a unified account of coral reefs in which multiple features of the coral reefs, such as their shape, slope of the sides, ridges, channels, and elevation relative to the water, were all explained by the action of the winds and waves—and proposed that one could use these features to predict seafaring conditions around the islands. Then, I show that Darwin’s “Coral Islands” (1835) and his _Coral Reefs_ monograph (1842) spoke to these hydrographical issues and did so, at times, by way of zoological reasoning. It was, for instance, the coral behavior and the related notion of a zoological or botanical _station_ that ultimately proved the biggest blow to the Admiralty’s aim to use the coral reefs as instruments because it eroded many uniform predictions regarding the past or future of a coral reef. Connecting these themes leads us to a surprising conclusion: that Darwin’s theory of coral reefs, long a model instance of Darwin making uniform predictable inferences, was, in actuality, also his first formal encounter with something at times the entire opposite. (shrink)

Islam means "peace" and "submission to God." With its ethical system of instruction for a balanced life based on faith and reason, how did this "religion of peace" come to be feared? After the 9/11 tragedy, Islam was judged by many in the West to be a hub of terrorism and a threat to world peace. People everywhere voiced concern over its concepts of war and Jihad. Ashraf traces these and related concepts from their inception in Qur'anic injunctions and the (...) Prophet's precepts to their current interpretation, evaluating them in their spiritual, moral, juridical, and cultural contexts. Misunderstandings about Islam lie at the core of much bitterness and violence. With no central authority to definitively interpret its teachings, misconceptions regarding Islam's ideology of war and peace abound. To label Islam as militant is to misinterpret jihad as simply a call to war and to ignore its laws governing warfare, which emphasize restraint as far as possible. Islamic Philosophy of War and Peace explains the spirit of Islam, its mandate for peace, and what the pluralistic notion of jihad stands for in the hope that clearing up ambiguities will foster peaceful relations between Muslims and the rest of the world. (shrink)

Black Existential Freedom looks at the ways in which Black cultural productions reflect a constant struggle for freedom and a refusal to surrender to the destructive forces of dehumanization. This book offers a counter-narrative to current Afro-Pessimist theorizations of Blackness that choose the power of death and nihilism over life.

Melancholia Africana argues that in the African and Afro-diasporic context, melancholy is rooted in collective experiences such as slavery, colonization, and the post-colony.

Research on the influence of industry on chemical regulation has mostly been conducted within the framework of the production of ignorance. This special issue extends this research by looking at how industry asserts its interests––not just in the scientific sphere but also at other stages of policy-making and regulatory process––with a specific focus on the types of tools or instruments industry has used. Bringing together sociologists and historians specialized in Science and Technology Studies, the articles of the special issue study (...) the arenas in which instruments and practical guidelines for public policy are negotiated or used. The aim is to observe the devices in the making or in action, from the selection of actors to the production of thresholds, criteria, and other technical regulations. The introduction highlights how industry influence on expertise and regulation is undoubtedly far more pervasive and multifarious than has been conceptualized to date by social scientists. Putting this issue back at the heart of both the STS and social sciences research agendas is increasingly urgent and could lead to new inquiries able to highlight these logics even more widely, using fresh empirical examples. (shrink)

It is important to understand the drivers of green consumption, because of growing concern for the health of the planet. In this paper, the assumption that a virtue-green product relationship exists is tested. The objective is to understand how product morality can influence the valuation of green products. Relying on virtue theory and positive spillover as conceptual bases, the research implicitly and explicitly tests and confirms green product virtue. The results demonstrate that perceived green product virtue leads to positive emotions, (...) which explain heightened purchase intentions. In line with the conceptualization, I show that the effect is moderated by the importance consumers place on their own morality. Importantly, explicitly framing green products as virtuous activates positive spillover by consumers; when green products are branded with a virtue cue, they encourage consumers to be more virtuous. Beyond being perceived as better people, when consumers interact with green products they effectively engage in more moral acts, such as making donations. The results confirm the perception of green products as moral agents and provide marketers with insights into the marketing value of virtue cues in green product consumption. (shrink)

La 4ème de couv. porte : "Depuis quelques années s'intensifient les rapports entre une société de l'information et une économie de l'attention : plus l'information est abondante, plus l'attention est rare. Alors que le travail se formule comme une lutte contre l'oisiveté et impose une certaine discipline de l'attention, la consommation, quant à elle, impose précisément de capter et perturber l'attention disciplinée. Progressivement, elle se monétise et progressivement, nous nous en sentons dépossédés. Pourquoi tenons-nous au concept d'attention? L'attention ne constitue (...) pas simplement un nouvel objet auquel l'éthique et la philosophie politique devraient s'intéresser. Loin de se limiter à développer une éthique appliquée de l'attention, problématiser l'attention nous amène à re-questionner les champs de l'éthique et de la philosophie politique. Pour répondre à ces questions, ce livre fait le pari de la pluridisciplinarité en rassemblant des travaux de différents horizons.". (shrink)

L’authenticité est peu étudiée par les économistes, quand est abordée, c’est à travers les liens qu’elle entretient avec la qualité. Nous montrons que tant qu’il était possible d’établir la qualité artistique de l’œuvre à partir d’un étalon prédéterminé, la question de l’authenticité se réduisait à celle d’attribution : comment les faux, les copies perturbent-ils le déroulement normal des échanges. Nous montrons l’apparition de la convention d’originalité au milieu du xixe siècle a conduit a opacifier la notion d’authenticité a été opacifiée. (...) Son registre n’est plus celui de la simple attribution mais également celui de la sincérité d’une démarche. Par ailleurs elle n’intervient plus seulement en aval mais participe à la définition même de la qualité. Pour être reconnue comme artistique, l’originalité produite ne doit pas être fortuite, mais refléter la sincérité de l’artiste. (shrink)

La dévotion au Christ puis à son cœur a son enracinement dans la tradition johannique de la conception du Dieu-Amour symbolisée par la plaie du côté du Christ sur la croix, considérée comme l’entrée vers son cœur. Elle a donné naissance à un courant spirituel homogène qui, de Marguerite-Marie Alacoque à Léon Dehon, met au centre de la théologie mystique, la dévotion à l’humanité du Christ. Celle-ci a une place privilégiée dans l’ordre des chartreux depuis les origines. Cette étude se (...) propose donc d’en évoquer les traces diachroniques à travers la triple thématique de l’imitation de Jésus-Christ, de la méditation de la Passion et de l’attachement sensible au cœur vulnéré du Christ, qui traversent les écrits cartusiens, notamment au XVIe siècle dans l’œuvre de Jean-Juste Lansperge et au XVIIe siècle dans celle de Dom Innocent Le Masson. (shrink)