For valid informed consent, it is crucial that patients or research participants fully understand all that their consent entails. Testing and revising informed consent documents with the assistance of their addressees can improve their understandability. In this study we aimed at further developing a method for testing and improving informed consent documents with regard to readability and test-readers’ understanding and reactions. We tested, revised, and retested template informed consent documents for biobank research by means of 11 focus group interviews with (...) members from the documents’ target population. For the analysis of focus group excerpts we used qualitative content analysis. Revisions were made based on focus group feedback in an iterative process. Focus group participants gave substantial feedback on the original and on the revised version of the tested documents. Revisions included adding and clarifying explanations, including an info-box summarizing the main points of the text and an illustrative graphic. Our results indicate positive effects on the tested and revised informed consent documents in regard to general readability and test-readers’ understanding and reactions. Participatory methods for improving informed consent should be more often applied and further evaluated for both, medical interventions and clinical research. Particular conceptual and methodological challenges need to be addressed in the future. (shrink)

Understanding Chinese philosophy requires knowledge of the referential framework prevailing in Chinese intellectual traditions. But Chinese philosophical texts are frequently approached through the lens of Western paradigms. Analysing the most common misconceptions surrounding Western Sinology, Jana Rošker alerts us to unseen dangers and introduces us to a new more effective way of reading Chinese philosophy. Acknowledging that different cultures produce different reference points, Rošker explains what happens we use rational analysis, a major feature of the European intellectual tradition, to (...) read Chinese philosophy. We rely on impossible comparisons, arrive at prejudiced assumptions and fail to arrive at the truth, the consequence of applying a different methodology to the process of perceiving, understanding and interpreting reality. Instead of transferring concepts and categories from Western sinology onto socio-cultural Chinese contexts, Rošker constructs a new methodology of reading, understanding and interpreting Chinese philosophy. She opens our eyes to the basic problems of Western paradigms, encourages intercultural approaches and allows us to master a more autochthonous understanding of Chinese philosophy. (shrink)

Conversational artificial intelligence (CAI) presents many opportunities in the psychotherapeutic landscape—such as therapeutic support for people with mental health problems and without access to care. The adoption of CAI poses many risks that need in-depth ethical scrutiny. The objective of this paper is to complement current research on the ethics of AI for mental health by proposing a holistic, ethical, and epistemic analysis of CAI adoption. First, we focus on the question of whether CAI is rather a tool or an (...) agent. This question serves as a framework for the subsequent ethical analysis of CAI focusing on topics of (self-) knowledge, (self-)understanding, and relationships. Second, we propose further conceptual and ethical analysis regarding human-AI interaction and argue that CAI cannot be considered as an equal partner in a conversation as is the case with a human therapist. Instead, CAI’s role in a conversation should be restricted to specific functions. (shrink)

First published in 1991. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The notion of trust has been discussed among several scientific fields, but it still lacks the joint theory. The goal was to analyze the trust associations of 600 participants and clarify how people associate the word “trust”. Overall, 600 participants produced 1800 associations which were sequentially divided into five domains and 14 categories. The findings imply, that when it comes to trust people tend to associate it mainly with relationships and positive emotions. The fact that associations involved mainly positive emotional (...) states and significant others may show, that trust in itself is something emotional and obviously bound to people we have the strongest bonds with. (shrink)

This review paper discusses the perspective of complex biological systems as applied to inheritance and ontogeny, focusing on the continuity of genetic, epigenetic and microbiotic inheritance. The informational processuality within this continuity can be used as to exemplify the insufficiency of hierarchical concepts in grasping the complex and integrated nature of biological processes. The argument follows Bruni and Giorgi in emphasizing that while structures and substrates are organized hierarchically, communicational processes are organized heterarchically. The essay also argues the insufficiency of (...) a single, basic, i.e. genetic level of description, which is the prevalent idea of twentieth century biology, to explain all phenotypic variation. I argue that inheritance and development cannot be fully explained by some sub- or super-ordination and that such descriptions are merely heuristic tools that do not reflect the nature of such processes. (shrink)

The relationship between academic freedom and freedom of speech features prominently in public and political discussions concerning the role of universities in Western liberal democracies. Recently, these debates have attracted increased attention, owing in part to media framing of a ‘free speech crisis’, especially in UK and US universities. One type of response is to regulate academic expression through legislation, such as the UK’s 2023 Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act. This article offers a critical analysis of the assumptions concerning (...) the performativity of speech in this kind of legal intervention. It extends Judith Butler’s discussion of the concept of ‘harmful speech’ as reported by Butler (Excitable speech: a politics of the performative, Routledge Classics, London, 1997) to conceptualize speech-acts as performative not only when it comes to populations, but also when it comes to institutions. Reconceptualizing universities as producing as well as being constituted by speech-acts, the article argues that the effects of free speech legislation need to be considered in the context of the transformation of universities and other political actors (including governments and student unions) in the second half of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first century. It argues that legal enforcement of free speech at universities further obscures the distinction between negative and positive liberties identified by Isaiah Berlin (Two Concepts of Liberty, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1958), and considers this shift as part of the reconfiguration of political ontology in late modernity. (shrink)

This book offers a thorough technical elaboration and philosophical defense of an objectivist informational interpretation of quantum mechanics according to which its novel content is located in its kinematical framework, that is, in how the theory describes systems independently of the specifics of their dynamics. -/- It will be of interest to researchers and students in the philosophy of physics and in theoretical physics with an interest in the foundations of quantum mechanics. Additionally, parts of the book may be used (...) as the basis for courses introducing non-physics majors to quantum mechanics, or for self-study by those outside of the university with an interest in quantum mechanics. (shrink)

This article introduces the concept of epistemic positioning to theorize the relationship between identity-based epistemic judgements and the reproduction of social inequalities, including those of gender and ethnicity/race, in the academia. Acts of epistemic positioning entail the evaluation of knowledge claims based on the speaker’s stated or inferred identity. These judgements serve to limit the scope of the knowledge claim, making it more likely speakers will be denied recognition or credit. The four types of epistemic positioning – bounding (reducing a (...) knowledge claim to elements of personal identity), domaining (reducing a knowledge claim to discipline or field associated with identity), non-attribution (using the claim without recognizing the author) and appropriation (presenting the claim as one’s own) – are mutually reinforcing. Given the growing importance of visibility and recognition in the context of increasing competition and insecurity in academic employment, these practices play a role in the ability of underrepresented groups to remain in the academic profession. (shrink)

The concept of dramatization represents a rhetorical and conceptual tension in Deleuze's philosophy in that it refers both to autopoietic ontological processes and to a critical philosophical method. Commentators are wont to refer to either one or the other, saying little about how or if these two fundamentally distinct usages can be thought together; that is what we aim to do here. By unravelling the conceptual transformations of the term, we can gain an appreciation for the double characterisation of dramatization (...) and its centrifugal nature. We begin with the hypothesis that dramatization is linked to actualisation in the first sense and counteractualisation in the second. The fundamental question that we would like to address is: how are these two views to be reconciled? Addressing this question leads us to the conclusion that dramatization becomes an ethical imperative for philosophical subjects to perform certain philosophical exercises, that is, to become worthy of the event. The particular philosophical exercise that is emphasised is the dramatization of a paradoxical thought of death. Ultimately, we suggest that dramatization can be galvanised for both an emancipatory politics and an ethico-aesthetic life practice. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to explain the evolution of life through the evolution of cellular and supra-cellular closures, two distinct ways of strict delimitation against the surroundings. Such closures are a necessary precondition of organisation, semiosis, and agency. We argue that in addition to the basic, first-order, cellular closures, which have been in existence without interruption since the dawn of life, there also exist second-order closures (cell communities), which are dynamic and often formed ad hoc. Moreover, a living (...) entity may belong simultaneously to different kinds of such second-order closures. It is these second-order closures which organise cellular (and higher-order) communities and form the core of the bonds that hold the biosphere together. In second-order closures, there exist countless crisscrossing pathways leading to manifold interpretations of particular situations. We provide examples of such relationships and point to an elaborate network connecting all denizens of the biosphere. (shrink)

This paper presents a proposal for the description of gesture phases derived from articulatory characteristics observable in their execution. Based on the results of an explorative study examining the execution of gesture phases of ten German speakers, the paper presents two sets of articulatory features, i.e., distinctive and additional features by which gesture phases are characterized from a context-independent and context-sensitive point of view. It will be shown that gesture phases show a particular distribution of the features, thus distinguishing one (...) phase from another. Furthermore, changes in the execution of phases in linear successions can be described by means of features. Contrary to other accounts, whose focus on gesture phases is primarily in relation to speech and/or adjacent phases, this proposal concentrates on the visible physical characteristics of gesture phases. (shrink)

This paper explores the problem of racial privilege in US American feminist thought. Drawing on Gayatri Spivak’s analysis of ethics, particularly her ideas of epistemic discontinuity and teleopoietic reading, I argue that a specific kind of ethical openness can help feminist social-political philosophy better negotiate the legacy of white privilege. Spivak’s work calls for a reconsideration and reworking of the subject who theorizes. Her analysis of ethics suggests that racially privileged feminists must be able to confront their own complicity in (...) order to engage in political critique less likely to recreate historical patterns of racial domination and exclusion. (shrink)

The past years have witnessed a growing awareness of the role of institutions of knowledge production in reproducing the global climate crisis, from research funded by fossil fuel companies to the role of mainstream economics in fuelling the idea of growth. This essay argues that rethinking knowledge production for post-carbon futures requires engaging with the co-determination of modes of knowing and modes of governing. The ways in which knowledge production is embedded in networks of global capitalism shapes how we (can) (...) think about the future. The essay argues for an attentivity to the material and infrastructural sides of knowledge production, which will enable us to re-think transition to post-carbon futures in ways that recognize the deep structural, spatial and social inequalities underpinning knowledge production. (shrink)

In this essay I advocate for the pedagogical value of public philosophy. In public essays, philosophers craft short arguments in clear prose that avoids disciplinary specific technical terms. Such texts are pedagogically valuable both because they teach students philosophical ideas and also because they offer students a template for philosophical argumentation upon which to model their own writing. Here I report on some of the pedagogical practices I have used for teaching public texts to advanced and introductory level undergraduates in (...) order to demonstrate how public philosophy serves as a valuable resource for the teaching of philosophy that can help students develop their capacity for engaged philosophical thinking and the effective communication of philosophical ideas. (shrink)

This informative and entertaining study addresses ethical considerations for deceptive works and proposes cataloging solutions that are provocative and designed to spark debate. An extensive annotated bibliography describes books that are not what they seem.

Literature on categorization often invokes historical legacies to explain why states adhere to statistical categories that inadequately capture their population, and especially minority groups. The failure of the 2011 German census to produce reliable numbers on the country’s largest religious minority, Muslims, could be viewed as a case in point. However, this ignores the fact that in the late 1980s officials successfully counted Muslims. This article traces how officials changed their approach to Muslim enumeration over the course of designing the (...) 2011 census. Drawing on internal ministerial documents and interviews, I show that the reversal of statistical visibility was the result of a recoupling process. Through this process, old state-religion laws that officials had previously ignored now became rigorously applied to the census. An extra-statistical debate on religious education triggered this recoupling by reviving narrow, legal categories of religion and alerting church representatives and legal experts to imprecise census terms. Using the German case and other empirical examples, I describe a more uneven influence of historical legacies than commonly suggested by research on categorization. Rather than viewing legacies as having a stable, or even growing, influence on categorization, I argue that they only take effect when they become politicized and enforced by powerful actors. I call for a more nuanced analysis of the role historical factors play in determining trajectories of census categorization, especially those that are invoked to explain the reluctance of European states to collect ethno-cultural data. (shrink)

This study investigated Belgian and Dutch parental opinions on confidentiality and consent regarding medical decisions about adolescents. Through an online survey, we presented six cases (three on confidentiality, and three on consent) to 1,382 Belgian and Dutch parents. We studied patterns in parental confidentiality and consent preferences across and between cases through binomial logistic regressions and latent class analysis. Participants often grant the right to consent for a treatment to the adolescent, but the majority diverges from the adolescent’s preferences regarding (...) confidentiality. More educated participants would rather not be informed about cases regarding a sexually transmitted disease or depression than lower educated participants. Further analysis shows that participants’ preferences correspond to authoritative (47%), permissive (30%) and authoritarian (17%) parenting styles. Belgian and Dutch parents are willing to grant some degree of autonomy, but they want to be informed about specific health issues. Parental views on confidentiality and granting consent appear to mirror existing parenting styles. (shrink)

This book offers a critical introduction of Li Zhou’s ethics. Li, who is among the most influential contemporary Chinese philosophers, takes Chinese ethics as a basis for his elaborations on Western ideas, aiming to develop a new global ethics.

In his commentary on Plato’s Parmenides Proclos describes the maternal and paternal contributions to reproduction as of equal value: The paternal seed furnishes potential λόγοι, the mother actualises them and so causes the reversion of the offspring. However, the definition of the mother as actualising cause is linked to the particular circumstances of conception in the sphere of nature. In general, Proclus bases his concept of femininity on the idea of a shared, but not equal activity by paternal and maternal (...) causes. In the metaphysical sphere the maternal cause is distinguished by its inspiring activity, that is, it provokes the procession of powers that are permanently anchored in the father and so it enables the begetting of the offspring as an entity separate from the father. This activity involves a loss of perfection, which is the basis for a difference in value between the activities of the maternal and paternal causes. (shrink)

Behaviour is central to many fields, but metatheoretical definitions specifying the most basic assumptions about what is considered behaviour and what is not are largely lacking. This transdisciplinary research explores the challenges in defining behaviour, highlighting anthropocentric biases and a frequent lack of differentiation from physiological and psychical phenomena. To meet these challenges, the article elaborates a metatheoretical definition of behaviour that is applicable across disciplines and that allows behaviours to be differentiated from other kinds of phenomena. This definition is (...) used to explore the phenomena of language and to scrutinise whether and under what conditions language can be considered behaviour and why. The metatheoretical concept of two different levels of meaning conveyed in human language is introduced, highlighting that language inherently relies on behaviours and that the content of what-is-being-said, in and of itself, can constitute behaviour under particular conditions. The analyses reveal the ways in which language meaningfully extends human's behavioural possibilities, pushing them far beyond anything enabled by non-language behaviours. These novel metatheoretical concepts can complement and expand on existing theories about behaviour and language and contribute a novel piece of theoretical explanation regarding the crucial role that language has played in human evolution. (shrink)

Study of Inference (anumāna) according to the Nyāyabhūṣaṇa, an autocommentary by Bhāsarvajña, 10th century, on his Nyāyasāra, aphorism on Nyaya philosophy.

Dieses Buch fragt danach, wie Recht und Rechtsprechung, Staats- und Rechtstheorie sowie moderne Verhaltensökonomie die Rationalität und den Egoismus des Menschen begreifen und wie dies die Wahl staatlicher Steuerungsinstrumente beeinflusst. Das scheinbar neuartige Instrument Nudging wird mit Blick auf Umweltschutzinstrumente, die Regulierung des Tabakrauchens und der Organspende in den öffentlich-rechtlichen Handlungsformenkatalog eingeordnet, wobei verfassungsrechtliche Grenzen diskutiert werden. Zielgruppe sind die an der "Metaebene" des Rechts und der Verhaltenssteuerung interessierten Leserinnen und Leser. Der Inhalt Zeigt Möglichkeiten und verfassungsrechtliche Grenzen staatlicher Verhaltenssteuerung (...) auf Diskutiert das egoistisch-rationale Menschenbild aus Sicht der Staats- und Rechtstheorie Ordnet Nudging systematisch in die öffentlich-rechtliche Handlungsformenlehre ein Die AutorinJana Maruschke war zwischen März 2016 und Oktober 2021 wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin am Lehrstuhl für öffentliches Recht, Umwelt- und Technikrecht sowie Rechtstheorie von Prof. Dr. Andreas Fisahn an der Universität Bielefeld. In diesem Rahmen hat sie sich vor allem mit Fragen des Umwelt- und Staatsrechts befasst. Das Rechtsreferendariat am Landgericht Bielefeld hat sie mit dem 2. Staatsexamen im Juni 2023 erfolgreich abgeschlossen. (shrink)

This paper begins with the assumption that the differences among women pose a threat to building a unified feminist theory and practice. Utilizing the work and methods of Michel Foucault, I explore theoretical and practical implications of taking difference seriously. I claim that a politics of difference puts into question the concept of a revolutionary subject and the idea of a social totality. In the final section a brief Foucauldian analysis of the feminist sexuality debates is given.

This review summarizes the research on ethical decision-making from 2004 to 2011. Eighty-four articles were published during this period, resulting in 357 findings. Individual findings are categorized by their application to individual variables, organizational variables, or the concept of moral intensity as developed by Jones :366–395, 1991). Rest’s four-step model for ethical decision-making is used to summarize findings by dependent variable—awareness, intent, judgment, and behavior. A discussion of findings in each category is provided in order to uncover trends in the (...) ethical decision-making literature. A summary of areas of suggested future research is provided. (shrink)

We present one of the first quantitative studies on auditory verbal experiences and auditory verbal agency voices or characters”) in healthy participants across states of consciousness. Tools of quantitative linguistic analysis were used to measure participants’ implicit knowledge of auditory verbal experiences and auditory verbal agencies, displayed in mentation reports from four different states. Analysis was conducted on a total of 569 mentation reports from rapid eye movement sleep, non-REM sleep, sleep onset, and waking. Physiology was controlled with the nightcap (...) sleep–wake mentation monitoring system. Sleep-onset hallucinations, traditionally at the focus of scientific attention on auditory verbal hallucinations, showed the lowest degree of VE and VA, whereas REM sleep showed the highest degrees. Degrees of different linguistic-pragmatic aspects of VE and VA likewise depend on the physiological states. The quantity and pragmatics of VE and VA are a function of the physiologically distinct state of consciousness in which they are conceived. (shrink)

Resumen:La filosofía ofrece múltiples ópticas para considerar el curso de la historia de la humanidad, perspectivas que van desde lo epistemológico hasta lo metafísico. Entre aquellas posibilidades interpretativas se encuentra el juego, específicamente la concepción antropológica del ser humano en tanto homo ludens –tema ya trabajado por Holzapfel en una obra previa–. A partir de dicha concepción lúdica del ser humano es posible analizar la dialéctica de los diversos tipos de juegos en el desarrollo histórico. La presente obra constituye una (...) invitación a recorrer el despliegue del homo ludens hasta las repercusiones de su desregulación agonal (juego de competencia) en nuestros días, proponiendo una solución lúdica a la crisis actual. (shrink)

Although much has been written about the nature of philosophy and how the discipline can be defined, little attention has been paid to the ways we develop the facility to reflect philosophically or why cultivating this ability is valuable. This article develops a conception of “philosophical sensitivity,” a perceptual capacity that facilitates our awareness of the philosophical dimension of experience. Based in part on Aristotle's notion of a moral perceptual capacity, philosophical sensitivity starts with most people's natural inclinations as children (...) to reflect about life's fundamental mysteries; when this capacity is cultivated with training over time, our attentiveness to the philosophical features of ordinary life becomes almost second nature. In much the same way an aesthetically sensitive person notices certain qualities of experience not readily perceptible by others, philosophical sensitivity involves the development of a particular way of seeing the world. (shrink)

For each vertex of a simple polygon P an integer valued weight is given. We consider the path p1, p2, ..., pk in P which is created according to the following strategy: p1 is a designated start vertex s and pi+1 is obtained by choosing the vertex with smallest weight among all vertices visible from pi and different from p1, p2, ..., pi. If there is no such vertex the path is finished. This path is called geometric lexicographic dead end (...) path. We shall prove the problem of determining whether a distinguished vertex t of P is on the geometric lexicographic dead end path or not to be P-complete. (shrink)

We consider the problem of quadrilaterizing an orthogonal polygon P, that is to decompose P into nonoverlapping convex quadrangles without adding new vertices. In this paper we present a CREW-algorithm for this problem which runs in O time using Θ processors if the rectangle decomposition of P is given, and Θ processors if not. Furthermore we will show that the latter result is optimal if the polygon is allowed to contain holes.

The article deals with Béla Tarr’s longest film Sátántangó and examines relations between image, time and ways of looking, comparing it to Lászlo Krasznahorkai’s 1985 eponymous novel on which the film was based. It reveals connections between episodes and shots in Sátántangó that lead to a conception of time that passes extremely slowly. It is recurrent—leading toward similar, repetitive situations—but at the same represents an inability to change. The image in this film is often conceived as it is mediated and (...) Tarr frequently uses compositions involving ways of looking through some kind of optical device or a window. The only way of accessing reality is to look at it when there is no real opportunity, will or ability to intervene and change it. In this sense the article shows the relationship between the image of the fictional world of Sátántangó, inhabited by passive and demoralized characters, and the world of the film spectator and his or her relation to film image as such. (shrink)

Contemporary changes in the domain of knowledge production are usually seen as posing significant challenges to ‘the University’. This paper argues against the framing of the university as an ideal-type, and considers epistemic gains from treating universities as assemblages of different functions, actors and relations. It contrasts this with the concept of ‘unbundling’, using two recent cases of controversies around academics’ engagement on social media to show how, rather than having clearly delineated limits, social entities become ‘territorialised’ through boundary disputes. (...) The conclusion extends this discussion to the production of knowledge about social objects in general. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe article opens with a discussion of recent theoretical and methodological innovations in the field of comparative philosophy. In this regard, I propose and explain a new possible method of contrasting particular aspects of divergent philosophical texts or discourses and denote it as a ‘philosophy of sublation’. Then, the paper provides a concrete example for such a post-comparative method of reasoning, I will try to apply a ‘sublation philosophy’ approach for a reinterpretation of certain aspects of the complex philosophical intersections (...) between modern Japanese and Chinese philosophies through the lens of a contrastive analysis of Nishida Kitarō’s and Mou Zongsan’s dialectical thought. In this way, I hope to shed some new light upon some general questions regarding different models of dialectics. (shrink)

Der Liberalismus beansprucht ein politisches Ordnungssystem zu sein, welches den Bürger*innen die Freiheit zuspricht und ihnen garantiert, sich selbst zu regieren. Doch löst er diesen Anspruch kohärent ein? Jana Katharina Funk zeigt auf, dass Freiheit nicht voraussetzungslos zu haben ist. In Anlehnung an Amartya Sen und Martha Nussbaum schlägt sie ein Konzept des Liberalismus vor, das die positive Freiheit in den Mittelpunkt stellt. Ein liberales Ordnungssystem muss demzufolge die Einzelnen zur Freiheit befähigen und ermächtigen. Es liegt an ihnen, sich (...) für ihre Version des guten Lebens zu entscheiden - aber sie müssen sich auch entscheiden können. (shrink)

Big social data have enabled new opportunities for evaluating the applicability of social science theories that were formulated decades ago and were often based on small- to medium-sized samples. Big Data coupled with powerful computing has the potential to replace the statistical practice of sampling and estimating effects by measuring phenomena based on full populations. Preparing these data for analysis and conducting analytics involves a plethora of decisions, some of which are already embedded in previously collected data and built tools. (...) These decisions refer to the recording, indexing and representation of data and the settings for analysis methods. While these choices can have tremendous impact on research outcomes, they are not often obvious, not considered or not being made explicit. Consequently, our awareness and understanding of the impact of these decisions on analysis results and derived implications are highly underdeveloped. This might be attributable to occasional high levels of over-confidence in computational solutions as well as the possible yet questionable assumption that Big Data can wash out minor data quality issues, among other reasons. This article provides examples for how to address this issue. It argues that checking, ensuring and validating the quality of big social data and related auxiliary material is a key ingredient for empowering users to gain reliable insights from their work. Scrutinizing data for accuracy issues, systematically fixing them and diligently documenting these processes can have another positive side effect: Closely interacting with the data, thereby forcing ourselves to understand their idiosyncrasies and patterns, can help us to move from being able to precisely model and formally describe effects in society to also understand and explain them. (shrink)

Critical accounts over the past years have focused on neoliberalism as a subject of knowledge; there has been a recently growing interest in neoliberalism as an object of knowledge. This article considers the theoretical, epistemological and political implications of the relationship between neoliberalism as an epistemic subject and neoliberalism as an epistemic object. It argues that the ‘gnossification’ of neoliberalism – framing it an epistemic project, and deriving implications for political engagement from this – avoids engaging with numerous ambiguous elements (...) of the production of knowledge. Drawing on Bourdieu’s concept of the ‘scholastic fallacy’ and Boltanski and Chiapello’s work in sociology of critique, the article lays out a framework for the study of the relationship between epistemic, moral, and political elements of critique of neoliberalism, including the conditions of its own production in contemporary academic contexts. (shrink)

Environmental crises, which are consequences of resource-intensive lifestyles and are characterized to a large extent by both a changing climate and a loss of biodiversity, stress the urgent need for a global social-ecological transformation of the agro-food system. In this regard, the bioeconomy and bioeconomic innovations have frequently been seen as instrumental in addressing these grand challenges and contributing to more sustainable land use. To date, the question of how much bioeconomic innovations contribute to sustainability objectives remains unanswered. Against this (...) background, we study four bioeconomic innovations using the case study of animal production and manure utilization in relation to their potential contributions to a social-ecological transformation. The analysis is based on the application of analytical categories derived from the literature that assess the normativity of these innovations and their implicit cultural changes. The results show that the innovations examined manifest existing thought styles and the incumbent socio-technical regime rather than contribute to a more fundamental transition. In this respect, we stress the importance of evolving alterative ideas in innovation design, applying more integrative approaches, such as embedding innovation processes into transdisciplinary processes, and developing adaptive and reflective governance approaches. In return, bioeconomic innovations should adjust towards the design mission of a social-ecological transformation and include a multitude of actors to discuss and harmonize contesting imaginaries and ethical concerns. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Foucault and the Discourse of Sex‐Desire Power and Pleasure Reading Foucault on Pleasures Foucault's Use of Pleasure The Turn to Ancient Greco‐Roman Ethics Why Embrace an Ethics of Pleasures? References.

We examine the embodiment of one foundational aspect of human cognition, language, through its bodily association with the gestures that accompany its expression in speech. Gesture is a universal feature of human communication. Gestures are produced by all speakers in every culture . They are tightly timed with speech . Gestures convey important communicative information to the listener, but even blind speakers gesture while talking to blind listeners , so the mutual co-occurrence of speech and gesture reflects a deep association (...) between the two modes that transcends the intentions of the speaker to communicate. Indeed, we believe that this linkage of the vocal expression of language and the arm movements produced with it are a manifestation of the embodiment of thought: that human mental activities arise through bodily interactions with the world and remain linked with them throughout the lifespan. In particular, we propose that speech and gesture have their developmental origins in early hand-mouth linkages, such that as oral activities become gradually used for meaningful speech, these linkages are maintained and strengthened. Both hand and mouth are tightly coupled in the mutual cognitive activity of language. In short, it is the initial sensorimotor linkages of these systems that form the bases for their later cognitive interdependence. (shrink)