In our living we feel and live immersed in a world of elements entities and processes that we treat as if they existed with independence from our distinguish them. From that sensoriality, as a contained belief in our nature, we lead us accepting implicit or explicitly that the act of questioning, deal with opening or discovering an independent world. That manner of thinking cannot be fundament if we in fact understand and take charge certain abstraction of our operating as human (...) and living beings. Historically the theories around this phenomenon is based on the belief that for one side that there isn’t an objective reality but it is a mind or brain phenomena, and for the other side that exist a reality, and this we can know it, if we do thing to discover it. This article try to understand the happening of questioning, without falling in this duality, appealing to certain abstraction of our coherence as observers. En nuestro vivir nos sentimos y vivimos inmersos en un mundo de elementos, entes y procesos que tratamos como si existiesen con independencia de lo que hacemos al distinguirlos. Desde esta sensorialidad, como una creencia contenida en nuestra naturaleza, nos conducimos aceptando explícita o implícitamente que el acto de preguntar consiste en abrir o descubrir un mundo independiente. Ese modo de pensar no se puede fundamentar si de hecho entendemos y nos tomamos en serio ciertas constataciones de nuestro operar como seres humanos y seres vivos. Históricamente las teorías en torno a estos fenómenos se basan en mayor o menor medida en la creencia, por una parte, que no existe una realidad sino que es una invención de la mente y/o cerebro y, por otra, que sí existe una realidad y esta es cognoscible en la medida que hacemos cosas para descubrirla. Este artículo intenta entender el suceder del preguntar sin caer en esta dualidad, apelando a ciertas abstracciones de nuestras coherencias como observadores. (shrink)

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault provides a backup of seed collections from genebanks around the world. It’s unique character has made it iconic in the public imagination as a ‘Noah’s Ark’ for crop plants. Its remote location and strict controls on access have, however, also lent it an air of mystery, swirling with conspiracy theories. In this paper, I first clarify the aims of the Vault, the history of its development and the policies and practices of its current operation. Given (...) concerns around its potential links to the biotechnology industry, I go on to ask whether GM crops are currently stored in the Vault. Presenting several reasons for why GM crops are formally excluded, while indicating the potential for both change and unintentional contamination, I am compelled to question whether GM crops should be excluded. Answering this requires an interrogation of their potential conservation value as modern contributors to crop biodiversity. In exploring this issue, I suggest that there has been surprisingly little discussion of the moral status and conservation value of bio-technological crop plants and indeed, of how we care for all the techno-lifeforms we are currently engaged in co-creating. I suggest that these are becoming important issues as biotechnological techniques and applications begin to rapidly evolve and diversify. Emphasizing the scope for a refreshed interdisciplinary research agenda exploring the interface between biotechnology and biodiversity conservation, I conclude the article by proposing new concepts of synbiodiversity and symbiodiversity to encourage further debate. (shrink)

In this volume, Brakel raises questions about conventions in the study of mind in three disciplines—psychoanalysis, philosophy of mind, and experimental philosophy. She illuminates new understandings of the mind through interdisciplinary challenges to views long-accepted. Here she proposes a view of psychoanalysis as a treatment that owes its successes largely to its biological nature—biological in its capacity to best approximate the extinction of problems arising owing to aversive conditioning. She also discusses whether or not "the mental" can have any (...) real ontological standing, arguing that a form of reductive physicalism can be sufficient ontologically, but that epistemological considerations require a branch of non-reductive physicalism. She then notes the positive implications of this view for psychiatry and psychoanalysis, Finally, she investigates the role of "consistency" in method and content, toward which experimental philosophers strive. In essence, Brakel articulates the different sets of challenges pertaining to: a) ancient dilemmas such as the mind/body problem; b) longstanding debates about the nature of therapeutic action in psychoanalysis; and c) new core questions arising in the relatively young discipline of experimental philosophy. (shrink)

This work concerns itself with characterising the different types of contents that arise from uses of interrogative sentences, describing what meanings get associated with particular interrogative sentences, and explaining how these get put together compositionally on the basis of the meaning of their constituents, with particular attention to the meaning of interrogative phrases. ;Within most recent work in linguistic semantics, questions, the contents of query uses of interrogatives, have been analysed reductively as higher order propositional objects. The current work argues (...) against such an analysis. In its stead a view of questions is offered wherein these constitute the subclass of singular propositional entities, unresolved states-of-affairs , those that contain one or more argument roles of the propositional entity with whom no entity is associated. This view provides for an inherently richer notion of answerhood that is at the same time based on entities that are more plausibly available to cognitive agents engaged in querying. The need for a richer notion of answerhood is prompted by our demonstration that the class of answers to any given question--contents that can be conveyed by acceptable responses--has been considerably under-recognized in past work. An important gain made by the proposed approach is that it reveals and provides a simple account of systematic and cross-linguistically stable contrasts in the ability of a predicate to take an interrogative meaning as an argument. ;Our proposal for characterising the meaning of interrogative expressions argues that there exist three independent classes of uses which interrogative phrases can undergo, which we dub independent, dependent, and reprise uses. We argue extensively against an assumption common to most past work that interrogatives should be viewed as quantifiers on either syntactic or semantic grounds. We propose that dependent and reprise uses of interrogative expressions are each particular instances of use-types applicable to non-interrogative expressions. Dependent uses include bound variable anaphora as an instance. Reprise uses comprehend quotative uses of declarative sentences. We show how combining the general characteristics of each use type with the characterisation of independent interrogative uses we provide enables the defining conditions pertaining to these additional interrogative uses to be derived. This allows for a simple and comprehensive account of the available interrogative meanings. (shrink)

This first part of a two‐part article illustrates how research in evolutionary biology and psychology illuminates questions arising in philosophy—specifically questions about the origins of severe, systemic aggression that arise in the mimetic theory of René Girard. Part I looks at: (i) how old the systemic practice of severe aggression is, (ii) how much results from humanity's mimetic/social and competitive nature and how much from ecological, resource, and cultural conditions, and (iii) if ecological and cultural conditions are important, might (...) we adapt them toward greater cooperativity today? After briefly reviewing mimetic theory, the article looks at evolutionary psychology and biology, including fossil and archeological evidence. Findings suggest that severe, systemic aggression might be relatively recent and that its occurrence depends on ecological/resource/socioeconomic conditions additional to our mimetic/social nature. Thus, distinguishing the conditions that prod aggression from those that support pro‐social behavior might aid us in structuring society today. (shrink)

This Part II of a two‐part article illustrates how research in evolutionary biology, anthropology, archeology, and psychology illuminates questions arising in philosophy—specifically questions about René Girard's theory of aggression. Part I looked at: (i) how old the systemic practice of severe aggression is; (ii) how much of it results from humanity's mimetic/social and competitive nature and how much from ecological, resource, and cultural conditions; and (iii) if ecological, resource, and cultural conditions are important, might we adapt this information toward (...) greater cooperativity today? Part II investigates Girard's theory of ritual sacrifice—especially human sacrifice—as a societal steam valve for the systemic aggression explored in Part I. It draws on theories of play, theater, and art to examine the role and function of such ritual sacrifice. (shrink)

"... stimulating and insightful... a thoroughly researched and timely contribution to the secondary literature of ethics... " —Library Journal "His important new work establishes Scott... as one of the foremost interpreters of the Continental philosophical tradition of the US.... Necessary for anyone working in ethics or the Continental tradition." —Choice "... a provocative discourse on the consequences of the ethical in the thought of Nietzsche, Foucault, and Heidegger." —The Journal of Religion Charles E. Scott's challenging book advances the broad claim (...) that ethics as a way of judging and thinking has come into question as philosophers have confronted suffering and conflicts that arise from our traditional systems of value. (shrink)

A Question of Voice: Philosophy and the Search for Legitimacy offers an explicit and comprehensive consideration of voice as a complex of rethinking aspects of the history of philosophy through issues of power, as well as contemporary issues that include and involve the desire for and the dynamics of legitimacy, for individuals and communities. By identifying voice as a significant theme and means by which and through which we might better engage some important philosophical questions, Ron Scapp hopes to (...) expand traditional philosophical discussion and discourse regarding questions about validity, legitimacy, empathy, and solidarity. He offers an innovative perspective that is informed and guided by multiculturalism, ethnic studies, queer studies, feminism, and thinkers and critics such as bell hooks, Barbara Christian, Angela Davis, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, among others. A Question of Voice is an American investigation, but also suggests questions that emanate from contemporary continental thought as well as issues that arise from transnational perspectives-an approach that is motived by doing philosophy in an age of multiculturalism. (shrink)

According to the standard analysis of degree questions, the logical form of a degree question contains a variable that ranges over individual degrees and is bound by the degree question operator how. In contrast with this, we claim that the variable bound by the degree question operator how does not range over individual degrees but over intervals of degrees, by analogy with Schwarzschild and Wilkinson's proposal regarding the semantics of comparative clauses. Not only does the interval-based semantics (...) predict the existence of certain readings that are not predicted under the standard view, it is also able, together with other natural assumptions, to account for the sensitivity of degree questions to negative islands, as well as for the fact, uncovered by Fox and Hackl, that negative islands can be obviated by some properly placed modals. Like Fox and Hackl, we characterize negative island effects as arising from the fact that the relevant question, due to its meaning alone, can never have a maximally informative answer. Contrary to Fox and Hackl, however, we do not need to assume that scales are universally dense, nor that the notion of maximal informativity responsible for negative islands is blind to contextual parameters. (shrink)

As the field of clinical ethics consultation sets standards and moves forward with the Quality Attestation process, questions should be raised about what ethical issues really do arise in practice. There is limited data on the type and number of ethics consultations conducted across different settings. At Loyola University Medical Center, we conducted a retrospective review of our ethics consultations from 2008 through 2013. One hundred fifty-six cases met the eligibility criteria. We analyzed demographic data on these patients and conducted (...) a content analysis of the ethics consultation write-ups coding both the frequency of ethical issues and most significant, or key, ethical issue per case. Patients for whom ethics consultation was requested were typically male, white, between 50 and 69 years old, of non-Hispanic origin, and of Roman Catholic faith. Nearly half were in the intensive care unit and 44.2 % died in the hospital. The most frequent broad ethical categories were decision-making, goals of care/treatment, and end-of-life. More specifically, capacity, patient’s wishes/autonomy, and surrogate decision maker were the most frequent particular ethical issues. The most common key ethical issues were withdrawing/withholding treatment, patient wishes/autonomy, and capacity. Our findings provide additional data to inform the training of clinical ethics consultants regarding the ethical issues that arise in practice. A wider research agenda should be formed to collect and compare data across institutions to improve education and training in our field. (shrink)

The paper shows different approaches to creativity, i.e. emergence of new meanings, in Merleau-Ponty and Patočka. The comparison is based mainly on Merleau-Ponty’s lectures L’institution dans l’histoire personnelle et publique (1954/55) and Patočka’s project Negative Platonism (1953). Despite some similarities evident in the key concepts “institution” and “transcendence”, there is a decisive difference between the two approaches concerning the temporality of creation. Whereas Merleau-Ponty likens the temporality of institution to future perfect tense, emphasizing the intertwining of present and future events, (...) Patočka understands novelty as something totally different from the present state of affairs. In his eyes, the question of how something new can arise equals the question of how an attitude of distance to existing traditions can be achieved. Contrary to Patočka, Merleau-Ponty argues that any living tradition tends towards its own transformation and presents a case of self-transcendence because it is governed by the principle of divergence (écart). Finally, we argue that some aspects of these two approaches both complement each other, and also show the limits of each other. (shrink)

We discuss the 'problem of convergent knowledge', an argument presented by J. Schaffer in favour of contextualism about knowledge attributions, and against the idea that knowledge- wh can be simply reduced to knowledge of the proposition answering the question. Schaffer's argument centrally involves alternative questions of the form 'whether A or B'. We propose an analysis of these on which the problem of convergent knowledge does not arise. While alternative questions can contextually restrict the possibilities relevant for knowledge attributions, (...) what Schaffer's puzzle reveals is a pragmatic ambiguity in what 'knowing the answer' means: in his problematic cases, the subject knows only a partial answer to the question. This partial knowledge can be counted as adequate only on externalist grounds. (shrink)

My chapter aims to advance the debate on a problem often raised by philosophers who are skeptical of implied narrators in movies. This is the concern that positing such elusive narrators gives rise to absurd imaginings (Gaut 2004: 242; Carroll 2006: 179-180). -/- Friends of the implied cinematic narrator reply that the questions critics raise about the workings of the implied cinematic narrator are "silly ones" to ask. -/- I examine how the "absurd imaginings" problem arises for all the central (...) arguments for the elusive cinematic narrator and discuss why the questions critics pose about this narrator are legitimate ones to ask. (shrink)

This paper studies the distribution of ‘list readings’ in questions like who does everyone like? vs. who likes everyone?. More generally, it focuses on the interaction between wh-words and quantified NPs. It is argued that, contrary to widespread belief, the pattern of available readings of constituent questions can be explained as a consequence of Weak Crossover, a well-known property of grammar. In particular, list readings are claimed to be a special case of ‘functional readings’, rather than arising from quantifying (...) into questions. Functional readings are argued to be encoded in the syntax as doubly indexed traces, which straightforwardly leads to a Crossover account of the absence of list readings in who likes everyone?. Empirical and theoretical consequences of this idea for the syntax and semantics of questions are considered. (shrink)

Increased attention paid to inter-group genetic variability following completion of the Human Genome Project has provoked debate about race as a category of classification in biomedicine and as a biological phenomenon at the level of the genome. Philosophers of science favor a metaphysical approach relying on natural kind theorizing, the underlying assumptions of which structure the questions asked. Limitations arise the more metaphysically invested and less attuned to scientific practice these questions are. Other questions—arguably, those that matter most socially and (...) politically—remain unasked, not merely overlooked but systematically ignored and even foreclosed. Race fails as a postulated natural kind because it fails to meet expectations that as a category of classification it furnish an authoritative taxonomy that by depicting fundamental divisions in nature is conducive to fulfilling far-ranging explanatory aims. Racial, ethnic, and other group designations may nonetheless be projectible insofar as they support inductive inferences in biomedicine, but this does not render them any less social. Indeed, the statistical, contingent, accidental, localized, and interest-relative bases of such inferences serve to undercut the dichotomizing of race as either biological reality or social construct and favor the adoption of a pragmatic approach. (shrink)

Increased attention paid to inter-group genetic variability following completion of the Human Genome Project has provoked debate about race as a category of classification in biomedicine and as a biological phenomenon at the level of the genome. Philosophers of science favor a metaphysical approach relying on natural kind theorizing, the underlying assumptions of which structure the questions asked. Limitations arise the more metaphysically invested and less attuned to scientific practice these questions are. Other questions—arguably, those that matter most socially and (...) politically—remain unasked, not merely overlooked but systematically ignored and even foreclosed. Race fails as a postulated natural kind because it fails to meet expectations that as a category of classification it furnish an authoritative taxonomy that by depicting fundamental divisions in nature is conducive to fulfilling far-ranging explanatory aims. Racial, ethnic, and other group designations may nonetheless be projectible insofar as they support inductive inferences in biomedicine, but this does not render them any less social. Indeed, the statistical, contingent, accidental, localized, and interest-relative bases of such inferences serve to undercut the dichotomizing of race as either biological reality or social construct and favor the adoption of a pragmatic approach. (shrink)

Philosophers working in bioethics often hope to identify abstract principles and universal values to guide professional practice, relying on ideals of objectivity and impartiality, and on the power of rational (individual, autonomous) deliberation. Such a focus has made it difficult to address issues arising from group‐based, sociohistorical differences like race and ethnicity. This essay offers a survey of some of the major issues concerning race in the field of bioethics. These issues include a long history of racialized abuse in (...) medical and scientific research, reproductive injustice and abuse against women of color, and persistent racial and ethnic disparities in U.S. health and health care. The essay also argues that the field of bioethics as a whole would be improved by taking the experience of racial minorities into account in all its theorizing. Philosophers can aid in this task by expanding their theoretical focus beyond questions of individual rights to questions of social justice, beyond informed consent to community collaboration, and beyond cultural competency to both structural competency and cultural humility. (shrink)

Why can I not appropriately utter ‘It must be raining’ while standing outside in the rain, even though every world consistent with my knowledge is one in which it is raining? The common response to this problem is to hold that epistemic must, in addition to quantifying over epistemic possibilities, carries some additional evidential information concerning the source of one'S evidence. I argue that this is a mistake: epistemic modals are mere quantifiers over epistemic possibilities. My central claim is that (...) the seeming anomaly of the data above arises from a mistaken conception of what a possibility is. Instead of conceiving of possibilities as possible worlds, I argue that we should conceive of possibilities as answers to open questions. (shrink)

Mason on the question: "What are the most important unsolved questions in political philosophy and/or related disciplines and what are the prospects for progress?" Political philosophy rarely, if ever, solves problems once and for all. Old problems usually persist despite attempts to resolve them, and even when they are successfully resolved, new ones arise from the ashes of the old. In my view, however, it would be a mistake to conclude from this that political philosophy makes no progress. We (...) should not measure progress in terms of problems solved or questions answered, but rather in terms of improved understanding. Progress occurs though clarifying the question that is being asked and by coming to a better understanding of which answers to that question are coherent. I think considerable progress has been made in the study of justice, in the sense that we understand the issues much better, though there are still many that we do not understand very well, for example, issues to do with the moral significance of national or state boundaries, and the issue of when justice requires people to bear the costs of their behaviour. I do not doubt that progress, in the sense of improved understanding, will be made on these issues as they come to the forefront of political philosophy. (shrink)

In today's world, the boundaries within which Christian theologians operate are becoming ever more permeable, and Christian theology is increasingly influenced and challenged by multiple “outside” factors. In Western Europe, two such factors stand out in particular: the so-called “turn to religion” in continental philosophy and religious diversity. Theologians working with contemporary continental philosophers and theologians engaging the multireligious world tend to work quite separately from one another. The aim of the present book is therefore to initiate a conversation between (...) these two groups of theologians. The question of truth was chosen because it is both a key issue in contemporary-philosophical debates (in the continental and analytic traditions) and one that arises in complex and problematic ways in the praxis of, and theoretical reflection on, interreligious dialogue. Some of the pressing questions that are addressed by the contributors to this volume are: What is truth? What is theological truth? How does the issue of truth arise from interreligious encounter? To what extent can or should the nature of truth be discussed explicitly during interreligious dialogue? Or should the question of truth be rather postponed in the interest of successful interreligious encounter? Is there a hermeneutical concept of truth and, if so, how can it be of help for theological reflection on the question of truth and on the role and place of truth in the context of dialogue between religions? (shrink)

This case for discussion highlights some of the ethical difficulties that may arise in the use of molecular typing techniques in the control of infectious diseases. Molecular typing techniques offer evidence (stronger than regular epidemiological exploration of sources and contacts) for claims about infection routes. Such evidence will mean that public health authorities need to think about how to respond ethically to causal responsibility for contagion. In this context, questions are raised about the use of molecular typing methods for source (...) and contact tracing in the control of infectious diseases. (shrink)

This paper discusses the behavior of three lexically distinct Greek expressions which appear to be the counterparts of English even: akomi ke, oute, and esto. The behavior of these three expressions is examined in positive and negative sentences, and it is demonstrated that they all are polarity sensitive. The distributional constraints of the three even-items, crucially, are shown to follow from their distinct scalar associations. In particular, the low-scalar likelihood of positive even (akomi ke) remains problematic with negation as well (...) as affirmation, a fact supporting the polarity approach to even and the lexical ambiguity that is associated with it. In further support of this conclusion, negative bias in questions is shown to arise not with negative polarity oute (which is ungrammatical in questions) or positive akomi ke (which is fine but creates no bias), but with esto— a low scalar item defined on a context-dependent scale. This finding strengthens Kay's 1990 and Horn's 1989 observation that likelihood alone is not sufficient for capturing the scalar properties of even. (shrink)

In this article, I address the question of violence with respect to the phenomenological difference between the transcendental and the empirical field. In the first part, I phenomenologically address the notion of violence, developing a concept required for an account of the phenomenon of violence. Thus, I correlate it with the notion of vulnerability, arguing that violence cannot be understood irrespective of vulnerability. However, a proper phenomenological account has to indicate the subjective conditions of possibility of a phenomenon as (...) it is given in experience. Therefore, we should ask: what is the status of violence when we are talking about the transcendental field? This question leads to the second part of my article, where I address the notion of violence from the perspective of the difference between the pure and the empirical ego, as it has been traced out by Husserl. If from the point of view of an empirical ego the concept of violence is meaningful, from the point of view of the transcendental ego it seems to be absurd. This is particularly significant, because Husserl is talking about the transcendental ego as being immortal. The pure ego is thus invulnerable and this means that violence—understood from the point of view of both the violating subject and the violated one—is something that cannot be linked to the transcendental field. The question that arises—how is violence possible on the empirical level, since it is impossible on the transcendental level?—is a question to which Husserl cannot respond. (shrink)

Relative blindsight is said to occur when different levels of subjective awareness are obtained at equality of objective performance. Using metacontrast masking, Lau and Passingham reported relative blindsight in normal observers at the shorter of two stimulus-onset asynchronies between target and mask. Experiment 1 replicated the critical asymmetry in subjective awareness at equality of objective performance. We argue that this asymmetry cannot be regarded as evidence for relative blindsight because the observers’ responses were based on different attributes of the stimuli (...) at the two SOAs. With an invariant criterion content , there was no asymmetry in subjective awareness across the two SOAs even though objective performance was the same. Experiment 3 examined the effect of criterion level on estimates of relative blindsight. Collectively, the present results question whether metacontrast masking is a suitable paradigm for establishing relative blindsight. Implications for theories of consciousness are discussed. (shrink)

National electronic health record initiatives are in progress in many countries around the world but the debate about the ethical issues and how they are to be addressed remains overshadowed by other issues. The discourse to which all others are answerable is a technical discourse, even where matters of privacy and consent are concerned. Yet a focus on technical issues and a failure to think about ethics are cited as factors in the failure of the UK health record system. In (...) this paper, while the prime concern is the Australian Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR), the discussion is relevant to and informed by the international context. The authors draw attention to ethical and conceptual issues that have implications for the success or failure of electronic health records systems. Important ethical issues to consider as Australia moves towards a PCEHR system include: issues of equity that arise in the context of personal control, who benefits and who should pay, what are the legitimate uses of PCEHRs, and how we should implement privacy. The authors identify specific questions that need addressing. (shrink)

First Published in 1951, this outline work on the theory of knowledge and metaphysics is intended both for university students who have recently started on the subject and for any who, without having the advantage of studying it at university, wish by private reading to acquire a general idea of its nature. The book deals with all the main questions arising within the field in so far as they can be stated and discussed profitably and simply. The topics discussed (...) include the place of reason in knowledge and life, the possibility of knowledge beyond sense-experience, the theory of perception, the relation of body and mind, alleged philosophical implications of recent scientific doctrines, the problem of evil and the existence of God. (shrink)

Guilt and forgiveness, with their attendant philosophical and religious ramifications, permeate writing on the Holocaust and can also be related to South Africa’s recent history and present situation. Two controversial and provocative books (both possibly autobiographical) which tackle the question of guilt and forgiveness head on are Simon Wiesenthal’s The Sunflower and Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader, both of which have led to much debate. The central event in both texts is the slaughter of innocents, burned to death in a (...) building during World War II, while the perpetrators (an SS officer who tells his story in The Sunflower and a concentration camp warder who refuses to tell hers in The Reader) either kill those trying to escape or totally ignore the screams of the victims. The reader has to decide whether it is plausible that years later these murderers feel genuine guilt and, if so, whether they should be forgiven – and by whom. The Reader can be seen as the obverse of The Sunflower. The two should be read in conjunction for an intriguing view of the human psyche, the dichotomy in the soul of a person preceding and succeeding his/her horrific deeds, and the questions arising of whether death can be faced by the wicked with a clear conscience, whether the fear of meeting one’s Maker engenders belated remorse, whether one changes if found out, and whether ignorance of mind betokens evil of soul which can be overcome with learning and insight. (shrink)

The contradiction between the rapid mathematization of health care through the active introduction of modern technologies and methods based on mathematical achievements in the field of medicine and the lack of a system of training medical students corresponding to these scientific successes, which allows them to carry out mathematical modeling of complex physical, chemical and biological processes at the molecular level for the purpose of their analysis and subsequent forecasting,, problems that arise when teaching mathematical analysis in medical Schools, and (...) possible ways to solve them. The solution identified during the research of problematic issues of teaching of mathematical analysis in medical schools is offered by enhancing the quality of learning through the re-allocated for the development of the discipline course hours stimulate the motivation of students, adjusting content and methodical component of teaching and active introduction in educational process of modern information technologies, elimination of excessive mathematical formalism. (shrink)

In facing up to life and its challenges, questions inevitably arise. Different situations provoke specific questions mostly trivial but frequently fundamental always seeking some kind of answer. While the transition from question to quest is a rather natural one for human beings and the need for answers is a serious human demand, the quest itself is significant, precisely because it is a human task. This book offers a number of literary-philosophical enquiries into these challenges of life. But it is (...) the one set of quests stimulated, deepened and widened by literature and philosophy as well as developed in a literary and philosophical way. Among the topics covered are: the search for meaning in life, the quest for wisdom, the aim of moral striving, the need for community life, the importance of relationships, the challenge of suffering, the desire for deliverance, and the longing for immortality. (shrink)

Logics designed to deal with vague statements typically allow algebraic semantics such that propositions are interpreted by elements of residuated lattices. The structure of these algebras is in general still unknown, and in the cases that a detailed description is available, to understand its significance for logics can be difficult. So the question seems interesting under which circumstances residuated lattices arise from simpler algebras in some natural way. A possible construction is described in this paper.Namely, we consider pairs consisting (...) of a Brouwerian algebra and an equivalence relation. The latter is assumed to be in a certain sense compatible with the partial order, with the formation of differences, and with the formation of suprema of pseudoorthogonal elements; we then call it an s-equivalence relation. We consider operations which, under a suitable additional assumption, naturally arise on the quotient set. The result is that the quotient set bears the structure of a residuated lattice. Further postulates lead to dual BL-algebras. In the case that we begin with Boolean algebras instead, we arrive at dual MV-algebras. (shrink)

EVERYONE IS INVOLVED in the question of being in one way or another. When we ask someone how to change the oil in an automobile, or what the diameter of the moon is, or how numbers are different from numerals, we are asking about being. Such interrogations, whether addressed to others or addressed by ourselves to ourselves, are particular questions about beings. But when as metaphysicians we raise the question of being, we do not pursue just one more (...) of these particular investigations. We ask a question that is somehow essentially singular, a question that cannot be made into many. If our question were to become plural, it would be a sign that we have cut off only part of being for our study and that we allow still other questions of being to be raised concerning the parts we have left out. It would be a sign that we have turned being into a genus, into one kind among many. Somehow the question of being has to be complete and comprehensive in itself; it has to be one question; and it must get at issues that enable all the particular questions to arise and to be answered. It is not that the question of being has nothing to do with questions about automobile oil and the diameter of the moon and numbers and numerals; the question of being can be recognized in all these particular questions, but it cannot be reduced to being one like them. (shrink)

The book considers the relationship between governance and participation, and the ways participation has been understood, framed and applied in the context of synthetic biology (SB) governance approaches. Based on fundamental questions about the scope, purpose, and responsibilities assigned to public participation activities, the authors conducted an literature review of policy reports and articles on SB governance. The authors identify key characteristics of synthetic biology, such as the complex interplay of research, engineering and IT expertise in the field, as well (...) as the challenges these characteristics pose in designing governance frameworks. Drawing on insights from a literature review, the authors contest calls for “earlier” and “more” participation on the basis that such calls fail to consider the necessary structural adjustments and resources needed for such endeavors. The brief addresses ethical questions arising in synthetic biology that could be used for developing frameworks of governance in the ongoing COVID-19 crisis and the consequent innovations in vaccine research. (shrink)

In the early 2000s, several states legalized marijuana for medicinal uses. Since then, more and more states have either decriminalized or legalized marijuana use for medical or recreational purposes. Federal law has remained unchanged. The state-level decriminalization of marijuana and the concomitant de-stigmatizing and mainstreaming is likely to lead to greater use among the general population, including among nursing mothers. Marijuana is already one of the most widely used illicit substances among lactating women. There exist few studies demonstrating the effects (...) of marijuana in breast milk on nursing babies. In the present context of a changing legal landscape, shifting cultural beliefs, and the absence of clear professional guidelines, healthcare professionals are faced with ethical questions around how best to support nursing mothers and their babies when marijuana use is a factor. This paper first presents an overview of the law, science, and professional guidelines as they relate to marijuana and breastfeeding. Then, I offer an assessment of the relevant ethical issues providers and their patients may need to navigate. (shrink)

While there has been a great deal of recent interest in parallels between metaethics and metaepistemology, there has been little discussion of epistemological analogues of the open question argument. This is somewhat surprising—the general trend in recent work is in the direction of emphasizing the continuity between metaethics and metaepistemology, and to treat metanormative questions as arising in parallel in these two normative domains. And while the OQA has been subjected to a wide variety of objections, it is (...) still influential in metaethics. In this paper, I aim to show that an epistemological version of the OQA is just as promising as its moral cousin. That's not to say that I'll unqualifiedly endorse either argument. Rather, my aim is to show that there is just as strong a prima facie case for an OQA in metaepistemology as there is in metaethics—I leave open whether the ultima facie case collapses. (shrink)

The Gettier problem has stymied epistemologists. But, whether or not this problem is resolvable, we still must face an important question: Why does the Gettier problem arise in the first place? So far, philosophers have seen it as either a problem peculiar to the concept of knowledge, or else an instance of a general problem about conceptual analysis. But I would like to steer a middle course. I argue that the Gettier problem arises because knowledge is a thick concept, (...) and a Gettier-like problem is just what we should expect from attempts at analyzing a thick concept. Section 2 is devoted to establishing the controversial claim that knowledge is thick, and, in Sect. 3, I show that there is a general problem for analyzing thick concepts of which the Gettier problem is a special instance. I do not take a stand on whether the Gettier problem, or its general counterpart, is resolvable. My primary aim is to bring these problems into better focus. (shrink)

Irigaray's insistence on sexual difference as the primary difference arises out of a phenomenological perception of nature. Drawing on Heidegger's insights into physis, she begins with his critique of the nature/culture binary. Both philosophers maintain that nature is not matter to be ordered by technical know-how; yet Irigaray reveals that although Heidegger distinguishes physis from techn in his work, his forgetting of the potentiality of matter, the maternal-feminine, and the two-fold essence of being as sexual difference means that his own (...) concept of physis can be understood as another techn. Focussing in particular upon Heidegger's interpretation of Aristotle's privileging of morphé over hylé as a description of presencing into appearance, I show that for Irigaray the movements of presencing and absencing emerge out of a metaphysics that does not take into account the fluidity, the mixtures and interpenetrations of a nature that is limited by fecundity not by death. Our oblivion to nature is the greatest danger, and thus attending to our embodied and hence sexuate nature holds the promise of a new age, since it is rooted in the possibilities of the flesh revealed through the cultivated perception of sexual difference. (shrink)

Let us assume that some organisms, humans at least and the other higher animals, have internal states and behavioral states that represent things external to themselves. One of the questions that everyone would like answered about these states is: In virtue of what does such a representational state get the specific content that it has? An answer to this question that’s popular just now is: In virtue of its biological function. I believe there is a deep reason why such (...) an answer can’t work. I shall present that reason in this paper.First, we need to be clear about the notion of biological function that’s being appealed to here. In particular, we need to distinguish two fairly different ways of thinking about function. We could think of something’s function as what it contributes to the present functioning or output of some complex system of which it is a part. Roughly, this is Cummins’ view in (Cummins 1984). (shrink)

This paper offers a new solution to the Surprise Test Paradox. The paradox arises thanks to an ingenious argument that seems to show that surprise tests are impossible. My solution to the paradox states that it relies on a questionable closure principle. This closure principle says that if one knows something and competently deduces something else, one knows the further thing. This principle has been endorsed by John Hawthorne and Timothy Williamson, among others, and I trace its motivation back to (...) work by Alvin Goldman. I provide counterexamples to the principle and explain the flaw in the reasoning of those who defend it. (shrink)

Whilst there is a growing volume of literature exploring the ethical implications of organisational change for HRM and the ethical aspects of certain HRM activities, there have been few published U.K. studies of how HR managers actually behave when faced with ethical dilemmas in their work. This paper seeks to enhance the foundations of such knowledge through an examination of the influence of organisational values on the ethical behaviour of Human Resource Managers within a sample of charities in the U.K. (...) and the Republic of Ireland. A qualitative research design is adopted utilising semi-structured interviews. Findings highlight ethical inconsistency in people management in the charity sector arising from the clear application of strong and explicit organisational values to external client groups but their limited influence on people management strategies and practices within the organisation. Many of the ethical issues faced by HRM professionals in both countries arise from this inconsistency. In their handling of ethical dilemmas, the HRM professionals exhibit a combination of a care ethic and a concern for justice but it is also clear that in situations of management intransigence, a desire to be conscience driven often gives way to a contingent approach. Whilst respondents considered it inappropriate for the HRM function to be the conscience of the organisation, it is seen to have a key role in providing management with advice on ethical action. However, the ability of HRM to influence ethical behaviour is highly dependent on the status of the function within the organisation. (shrink)

Wittgenstein's treatment of private language is the dissolution of some of the major problems in traditional philosophy. Philosophical problems, for Wittgenstein, are the conceptual confusion arising due to the abuse of language. They can be fully dispensed with by commanding a clear view of language. Language, for Wittgenstein, is on the one hand, the source of philosophical problems while, on the other hand, it is a means to dispense with them. Private language is one such issue which is ultimately (...) rooted I a mistaken conception of language and is the sources of various philosophical problems/ puzzles. (shrink)

Whenever an adequate theory is found in science, we will still be left with two questions: why this theory rather than some other theory, and how should this theory be interpreted? I argue that these questions can be answered by a theory of system relations. The basic idea is that fundamental characteristics of systems, viz. those arising from the general systemic nature of those systems, cannot be comprehended with the aid of discipline-specific methods. The systems theory required should commence (...) with an analysis of the qualitatively different relations possible between systems, because it is precisely the nature of those relations that determines the basic structures of systems. That the theory of the fundamental system relations and their ontological and epistemological implications is indeed able to provide the answers sought is demonstrated in theoretical physics and Plessner's analysis of the basic structures of plant, animal and human being. (shrink)

This is an account, by a distinguished psychiatrist, of his religious beliefs and experiences, and of how he has wrestled, in his life and work, to understand the human mind distress. He explores the difficulties which arise for someone who, on becoming aware of the capacity of humanity for suffering, refuses to despair.

The prospect of using cell-based interventions to treat neurological conditions raises several important ethical and policy questions. In this target article, we focus on issues related to the unique constellation of traits that characterize CBIs targeted at the central nervous system. In particular, there is at least a theoretical prospect that these cells will alter the recipients' cognition, mood, and behavior—brain functions that are central to our concept of the self. The potential for such changes, although perhaps remote, is cause (...) for concern and careful ethical analysis. Both to enable better informed consent in the future and as an end in itself, we argue that early human trials of CBIs for neurological conditions must monitor subjects for changes in cognition, mood, and behavior; further, we recommend concrete steps for that monitoring. Such steps will help better characterize the potential risks and benefits of CBIs as they are tested and potentially used for treatment. (shrink)

In the late 1980s, an Institute of Medical Ethics working party on the teaching of medical ethics defined the subject as follows.1 Medical Ethics, it stated, has ‘two meanings’: ‘traditionally’ it ‘has referred to the standards of professional competence and conduct which the medical profession requires of its members’; ‘increasingly’, it ‘refers to the study of ethical or moral problems raised by the practice of medicine’. Thirty years on, teaching, learning and research in medical ethics retains this dual emphasis on (...) the normative as well as the problematic. In the same vein, most papers in this issue of the Journal raise ethically problematic questions which have practical moral implications for what eventually ought, or ought not to be done, to or by individuals or populations in the context of healthcare. The urgent need for a well-argued medical ethics was acknowledged by the IME working party when it observed that many of the problems now ‘increasingly’ raised by the practice of medicine ‘cannot be resolved simply by appealing to professional codes, or to science, religion, the law or even common sense’. Such problems, the report added, ‘often arise… when principles previously accepted begin to be questioned, or are understood imperfectly or even misrepresented’. That these categories remain relevant, again is illustrated by papers in this issue. At the most fundamental, if also perhaps the most speculative level, are questions previously asked about the moral status of consciousness in animals or in non-communicating brain-injured patients for example, but now also being asked in relation to cerebral organoids or ‘mini-brains’. As Lavazza and Massimini explain in their ground-breaking paper on the subject organoids are ‘three-dimensional biological structures grown in vitro from different kinds of stem-cells that self-organise mimicking real organs with specific cell-types’: these now …. (shrink)