SUMMARYThis essay discusses Hans Aarsleff's long battle to demonstrate the importance of the French and British thinkers of the mid-eighteenth century to the development of modern linguistic thought. Contesting claims that German scholars were the first to develop historicised theories of language, Aarsleff, along with his Princeton colleagues Lionel Gossman and Anthony Grafton, helped pioneer longue durée studies of the history of philology and of historiography that cross national boundaries as well as the so-called Sattelzeit. Although the importance of his (...) work was, for a long time, little appreciated by modern intellectual historians, this essay argues that it is time that we fully learned Aarsleff's lessons. (shrink)

Mental health chatbots (MHCBs) designed to support individuals in coping with mental health issues are rapidly advancing. Currently, these MHCBs are predominantly used in commercial rather than clinical contexts, but this might change soon. The question is whether this use is ethically desirable. This paper addresses a critical yet understudied concern: assuming that MHCBs cannot have genuine emotions, how this assumption may affect psychotherapy, and consequently the quality of treatment outcomes. We argue that if MHCBs lack emotions, they cannot have (...) genuine (affective) empathy or utilise countertransference. Consequently, this gives reason to worry that MHCBs are (a) more liable to harm and (b) less likely to benefit patients than human therapists. We discuss some responses to this worry and conclude that further empirical research is necessary to determine whether these worries are valid. We conclude that, even if these worries are valid, it does not mean that we should never use MHCBs. By discussing the broader ethical debate on the clinical use of chatbots, we point towards how further research can help us establish ethical boundaries for how we should use mental health chatbots. (shrink)

BackgroundConflict in Iraq has displaced millions of refugee youth. Warzone exposure and forced migration have unique acute and chronic impacts on youth, yet effects of exposure may not be universal across diverse refugee groups. Understanding how youth from various refugee groups are differentially affected by stress and trauma is critical to allocate resources and implement screening measures with the goal of providing early intervention.MethodTo identify the effects of warzone exposure and forced migration, a convenience sample of 48 Iraqi refugee youth (...) ages 6–17 was assessed within the first month of arrival to the United States. Youth provided self-reported severity of posttraumatic stress and anxiety symptoms; symptom severity was then compared with an existing sample of 135 Syrian refugee youth to explore whether refugee youth of different nationalities experience the same effects of warzone exposure and forced migration. These data are the baseline for a longitudinal developmental study of refugee health, which also includes parental data.ResultsSeverity of separation anxiety and negative alterations in cognition and mood were the greatest symptomatic concerns in Iraqi refugee youth. Thirty-eight percent of responding Iraqi youth showed possible indication of an anxiety disorder. Severity of posttraumatic stress symptoms was lower in Iraqi youth compared to Syrian youth. For both Iraqi and Syrian refugee youth, separation anxiety was the most significant concern, with more than 80% of both samples showing a possible indication of clinically significant separation anxiety.ConclusionThe present observational study indicated that Iraqi refugee youth experience a range of anxiety and posttraumatic stress symptoms following warzone exposure and forced migration; posttraumatic stress symptoms were less severe in Iraqi versus Syrian youth. Comparing refugee youth of different nationalities is of particular importance, as our results demonstrate that findings from one refugee population cannot easily be generalized to another. Clinical and research efforts should prioritize interventions to address separation anxiety in refugee youth, which was of concern in both samples. (shrink)

Objective To assess whether the frequency of end-of-life decisions for children under 1 year of age in the Netherlands has changed since ultrasound examination around 20 weeks of gestation became routine in 2007 and after a legal provision for deliberately ending the life of a newborn was set up that same year. Methodology This was a recurrent nationwide cross-sectional study in the Netherlands. In 2010, a sample of death certificates from children under 1 year of age was derived from the (...) central death registry. All 223 deaths that occurred in a 4-month study period were included. Physicians who had reported a non-sudden death (n=206) were sent a questionnaire on the end-of-life decisions made. 160 questionnaires were returned (response 78%). Findings In 2010, 63% of all deaths of children under 1 year of age were preceded by an end-of-life decision—a percentage comparable to other times when this study was conducted (1995, 2001, 2005). These end-of-life decisions were mainly decisions to withdraw or withhold potentially life-sustaining treatment. In 2010, the percentage of cases in which drugs were administered with the explicit intention to hasten death was 1%, while in 1995 and 2001, this was 9% and in 2005, this was 8%. Discussion and conclusion There has been a reduction of infant deaths that followed administration of drugs with the explicit intention to hasten death. One explanation for this reduction relates to the introduction of routine ultrasound examination around 20 weeks of gestation. In addition, the introduction of legal criteria and a review process for deliberately ending the life of a newborn may have left Dutch physicians with less room to hasten death. (shrink)

Despite the burgeoning literature on professionalism in other health professions, psychology lags behind in the level of attention given to this core competency. In this article, we review definitions from other health professions and how they address professionalism. Next, we review how this competency evolved within health service psychology (HSP), and we propose a definition. We offer an approach for assessing professionalism within HSP. Consideration is given to strategies and methods for providing effective education and training in this multifaceted competency. (...) Finally, recommendations are made for creating a culture of professionalism within HSP and honoring psychology’s social contract with multiple publics. (shrink)

Multimodal prehabilitation is increasingly recognized as an important component of the pre-operative pathway in oncology. It aims to optimize physical and psychological health through delivery of a series of tailored interventions including exercise, nutrition, and psychological support. At the core of this prescription is a need for considerable health behavior change, to ensure that patients are engaged with and adhere to these interventions and experience the associated benefits. To date the prehabilitation literature has focused on testing the efficacy of devised (...) exercise and nutritional interventions with a primary focus on physiological and mechanistic outcomes with little consideration for the role of behavioral science, supporting individual behavior change or optimizing patient engagement. Changing health behavior is complex and to maximize success, prehabilitation programs should draw on latest insights from the field of behavioral science. Behavioral science offers extensive knowledge on theories and models of health behavior change to further advance intervention effectiveness. Similarly, interventions developed with a person-centered approach, taking into consideration individual needs and preferences will increase engagement. In this article, we will provide an overview of the extent to which the existing prehabilitation literature incorporates behavioral science, as well as studies that have explored patient's attitudes toward prehabilitation. We will go on to describe and critique ongoing trials in a variety of contexts within oncology prehabilitation and discuss how current scientific knowledge may be enhanced from a behavioral science perspective. We will also consider the role of “surgery schools” and detail practical recommendations that can be embedded in existing or emerging clinical settings. (shrink)

"In recent years, we have grown accustomed to philosophical language that is intensely self-conscious and rhetorically thick, often tragic in tone. It is enlivening to read Bergson, who exerts so little rhetorical pressure while exacting such a substantial effort of thought.... Bergson's texts teach the reader to let go of entrenched intellectual habits and to begin to think differently—to think in time.... Too much and too little have been said about Bergson. Too much, because of the various appropriations of his (...) thought. Too little, because the work itself has not been carefully studied in recent decades."—from Thinking in Time Henri Bergson, whose philosophical works emphasized motion, time, and change, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1927. His work remains influential, particularly in the realms of philosophy, cultural studies, and new media studies. In Thinking in Time, Suzanne Guerlac provides readers with the conceptual and contextual tools necessary for informed appreciation of Bergson's work. Guerlac's straightforward philosophical expositions of two Bergson texts, Time and Free Will and Matter and Memory, focus on the notions of duration and memory—concepts that are central to the philosopher's work. Thinking in Time makes plain that it is well worth learning how to read Bergson effectively: his era and our own share important concerns. Bergson's insistence on the opposition between the automatic and the voluntary and his engagement with the notions of "the living," affect, and embodiment are especially germane to discussions of electronic culture. (shrink)

The paper takes up Bell's “Everett theory” and develops it further. The resulting theory is about the system of all particles in the universe, each located in ordinary, 3-dimensional space. This many-particle system as a whole performs random jumps through 3N-dimensional configuration space – hence “Tychistic Bohmian Mechanics”. The distribution of its spontaneous localisations in configuration space is given by the Born Rule probability measure for the universal wavefunction. Contra Bell, the theory is argued to satisfy the minimal desiderata for (...) a Bohmian theory within the Primitive Ontology framework. TBM's formalism is that of ordinary Bohmian Mechanics, without the postulate of continuous particle trajectories and their deterministic dynamics. This “rump formalism” receives, however, a different interpretation. We defend TBM as an empirically adequate and coherent quantum theory. Objections voiced by Bell and Maudlin are rebutted. The “for all practical purposes”-classical, Everettian worlds exist sequentially in TBM. In a temporally coarse-grained sense, they quasi-persist. By contrast, the individual particles themselves cease to persist. (shrink)

What constitutes a scientific discovery? What role do discoveries play in science, its dynamics and social practices? Must every discovery be attributed to an individual discoverer (or a small number of discoverers)? The paper explores these questions by first critically examining extant philosophical explications of scientific discovery—the models of scientific discovery, propounded by Kuhn, McArthur, Hudson, and Schindler. As a simple, natural and powerful alternative, we proffer the “change-driver model”: in a nutshell, it takes discoveries to be cognitive scientific results (...) that have epistemically advanced science. The model overcomes the shortcomings of its precursors, whilst preserving their insights. We demonstrate its intensional and extensional superiority, especially with respect to the link between scientific discoveries and the dynamics of science, as well as the award system of science. Both as an illustration, and as an application to a recent scientific and political controversy, we apply the considered models of discovery to one of the most momentous discoveries of science: the expansion of the universe. We oppose the 2018 proposal of the International Astronomers’ Union as too simplistic vis-`a-vis the historical complexity of the episode. The change- driver model yields a more nuanced and circumspect verdict: (i) The redshift-distance relation shouldn’t be named the “Hubble-Lemaître Law”, but “Slipher-Lundmark-Hubble-Humason Law”; (ii) Its interpretation in terms of an expanding universe, however, Lemaître ought to be given credit for; but (iii) The establishment of the expansion of the universe, as an evidentially sufficiently warranted result, is a communal achievement, emerging in the 1950s or 1960s. (shrink)

In this book, Suzanne Kirschner traces the origins of contemporary psychoanalysis back to the foundations of Judaeo-Christian culture, and challenges the prevailing view that modern theories of the self mark a radical break with religious and cultural tradition. Instead, she argues, they offer an account of human development which has its beginnings in biblical theology and neoplatonic mysticism. Drawing on a wide range of religious, literary, philosophical and anthropological sources, Dr Kirschner demonstrates that current Anglo-American psychoanalytic theories are but (...) the latest version of a narrative that has been progressively secularized over the course of nearly two millennia. She displays a deep understanding of psychoanalytic theories, while at the same time raising provocative questions about their status as knowledge and as science. (shrink)

Scientists and decision makers rely on climate models for predictions concerning future climate change. Traditionally, physical processes that are key to predicting extreme events are either directly represented or indirectly represented. Scientists are now replacing physically based parameterizations with neural networks that do not represent physical processes directly or indirectly. I analyze the epistemic implications of this method and argue that it undermines the reliability of model predictions. I attribute the widespread failure in neural network generalizability to the lack of (...) process representation. The representation of climate processes adds significant and irreducible value to the reliability of climate model predictions. (shrink)

Philosophers of science have offered various accounts of climate model evaluation which have largely centered on model-fit assessment. However, despite the wide-spread prevalence of process-based evaluation in climate science practice, this sort of model evaluation has been undertheorized by philosophers of science. In this paper, I aim to expand this narrow philosophical view of climate model evaluation by providing a philosophical account of process evaluation that is rooted in a close examination of scientific practice. I propose dynamical adequacy as a (...) metric by which scientists test and evaluate models that represent and produce key regional climate processes and features. I argue that process-based evaluation confirms the adequacy of a regional climate model for simulating and predicting future changes of a specific regional climate feature. I offer a case study of how, in practice, scientists establish the reliability of model projections by assessing the dynamical adequacy of such models. I also show how process-based evaluation mitigates some well-known shortcomings of model-fit assessment and supports the adequacy and reliability of climate model projections against philosophical objections, like confirmational holism. Such adequacy is especially important for decision makers who need reliable regional model projections to guide their climate change mitigation and adaptation policies. (shrink)

In the following paper, I review and critically assess the four standard routes commonly taken to establish that gravitational waves possess energy-momentum: the increase in kinetic energy a GW confers on a ring of test particles, Bondi/Feynman’s Sticky Bead Argument of a GW heating up a detector, nonlinearities within perturbation theory, taken to reflect the fact that gravity contributes to its own source, and the Noether Theorems, linking symmetries and conserved quantities. Each argument is found to either to presuppose controversial (...) assumptions or to be outright spurious. I finally examine the standard interpretation of binary systems, according to which orbital decay is explained in terms of the system’s energy being via GW energy- momentum transport. I contend that a better interpretation, drawing only on the general-relativistic Equations of Motions and the Einstein Equations, is available - and in fact preferable; thereby also an inference to the best explanation for the vindication of GW energy-momentum is blocked. (shrink)

This article revisits Karl Popper’s falsificationist methodology with respect to three tasks. The first is to illuminate and systematize Popper’s methodological views in light of his core epistemological commitments. A second and related objective is to gauge which aspects of falsificationism should be identified as “conventionalist”—a label that Popper himself uses (albeit with qualifications) but that is compromised by and, thus, stands in need of elucidation because of Popper’s idiosyncratic understanding of conventionalism. Third, by elaborating Popper’s virtue-epistemological, dialogical model of (...) rationality, I show how Popper’s conventionalism, fallibilism, and critical rationalism form a coherent system. This system allows Popper to accord science the status of a privileged source of knowledge—without naïve appeal to authority. My systematization of Popper’s views yields an intrinsically and exegetically more satisfactory reading of Popper’s falsificationism than usual presentations. Thanks to its marked flexibility and methodological liberalism, it bypasses many standard objections but still offers sound and relevant methodological advice. With its “virtue-methodological” thrust, Popper sketches an original and promising approach to methodology, the fertility of which deserves further exploration for contemporary debates. (shrink)

La tension entre le non-dualisme et le dualisme domine toute l’histoire du Vedanta. En face de l’advaita de Śaṅkara, le système de Madhva, auquel cette étude est consacrée, représente l’extrême dualisme, dvaita. Cependant Madhva, après avoir posé la réalité irréductible de la différence entre Dieu et le monde, a comme compensé cette scission de l’être par l’affirmation que tout être autre que l’Être absolu est dépendant de celui-ci, seul Dieu ne dépendant que de lui-même. L’originalité du système de Madhva est (...) d’inventer une relation nouvelle entre l’Être et les êtres. Seul l’Être est capable de faire exister des êtres différents de lui et totalement dépendants de lui ; Dieu permet à toute réalité d’être, et d’être ce qu’elle est. (shrink)

" L'expérience esthétique, n'est autonome, écrit Adorno, que lorsqu'elle se débarrasse du goût culinaire, la voie qui y conduit passe par le désintéressement.... ", à ce lointain écho de la rupture transcendantale au sein de l'Esthétique du goût, à ce déni pur et simple de la sensibilité et du plaisir " sensuel et grossier ", comme principes du goût, on préfèrera, ici, une présentation non morale, ou non kantienne, de la notion de goût ; une réflexion qui, de Voltaire et (...) Montesquieu à Brillat-Savarin, prend en compte le goût " lui-même " et non seulement sa métaphore ; on cherchera le raffinement et la délicatesse du goût non seulement dans les sphères supérieures de l'existence, mais aussi dans les relations primordiales de la vie, celle de la consommation, de la préparation et de la production, ainsi que le voulait Charles Fourier, (beau) frère de Brillat-Savarin. Dans les deux essais, ici étudiés, s'impose, en effet, la dimension organique et sensuelle mais néanmoins esthétique du goût, dans les choses de la nature et de l'art. L'Essai sur le goût de Montesquieu et La Physiologie du goût de Brillat-Savarin, témoignent, dans des domaines distincts mais étroitement liés, de l'Esthétique comme " science de la sensibilité ". Par leur rapprochement, on entend montrer que le goût n'est pas une " chose mentale " mais l'affaire de tous les sens, que l'âme qui goûte est l'âme qui sent. On cherchera à dépasser le divorce, qui semble s'être installé, entre le jugement esthétique et le plaisir esthétique, on tentera par là, de restaurer la continuité entre les deux pôles de la sensibilité gustative et de redonner, par une réévaluation du goût culinaire, une assise réelle, vitale et réconfortante à la notion de goût, comme sentiment délicat. (shrink)

Classical physics is about real objects, like apples falling from trees, whose motion is governed by Newtonian laws. In standard quantum mechanics only the wave function or the results of measurements exist, and to answer the question of how the classical world can be part of the quantum world is a rather formidable task. However, this is not the case for Bohmian mechanics, which, like classical mechanics, is a theory about real objects. In Bohmian terms, the problem of the classical (...) limit becomes very simple: when do the Bohmian trajectories look Newtonian? (shrink)

Cover; Table of Contents; Introduction; References; List of Illustrations; Acknowledgments; 1. Essays; Intimacy Unveiled (Suzanne Anker); From Apocalypse to Analogy; Transforming Life; References; List of Illustrations; Through the Looking Glass: Encounters with Suzanne Anker's Wonderlands (Sabine Flach); I. Making is Thinking -- Art as Knowledge; II. "We can know more than we can tell"; III. Ars Quaerendi -- The Art of Asking Questions; IV. Synechein -- The Art of Interweaving; References; List of Illustrations; 2. Dialogues; Dialogue I: The (...) Glass Veil. (shrink)

The present paper revisits the debate between realists about gravitational energy in GR and anti-realists/eliminativists. I re-assess the arguments underpinning Hoefer’s seminal eliminativist stance, and those of their realist detractors’ responses. A more circumspect reading of the former is proffered that discloses where the so far not fully appreciated, real challenges lie for realism about gravitational energy. I subsequently turn to Lam and Read’s recent proposals for such a realism. Their arguments are critically examined. Special attention is devoted to the (...) adequacy of Read’s appeals to functionalism, imported from the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

The present paper revisits the debate between realists about gravitational energy in GR and anti-realists/eliminativists. I re-assess the arguments underpinning Hoefer’s seminal eliminativist stance, and those of their realist detractors’ responses. A more circumspect reading of the former is proffered that discloses where the so far not fully appreciated, real challenges lie for realism about gravitational energy. I subsequently turn to Lam and Read’s recent proposals for such a realism. Their arguments are critically examined. Special attention is devoted to the (...) adequacy of Read’s appeals to functionalism, imported from the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

I argue that in the Phaedo, Plato maintains that the soul is located in space and is capable of locomotion and of interacting with the body through contact. Numerous interpreters have dismissed these claims as merely metaphorical, since they assume that as an incorporeal substance, the soul cannot possess spatial attributes. But careful examination of how Plato conceives of the body throughout his corpus reveals that he does not distinguish it from the soul in terms of spatiality. Furthermore, assigning spatial (...) attributes to the soul plays an important role in Plato’s account of the relation of body and soul. (shrink)

Some jurisdictions that have decriminalized assisted dying exclude psychiatric patients on the grounds that their condition cannot be determined to be irremediable, that they are vulnerable and in need of protection, or that they cannot be determined to be competent. We review each of these claims and find that none have been sufficiently well-supported to justify the differential treatment psychiatric patients experience with respect to assisted dying. We find bans on psychiatric patients’ access to this service amount to arbitrary discrimination. (...) Proponents of banning the practice ignore or overlook alternatives to their proposal, like an assisted dying regime with additional safeguards. Some authors have further criticized assisted dying for psychiatric patients by highlighting allegedly problematic practices in those countries which allow it. We address recent evidence from the Netherlands, showing that these problems are either misrepresented or have straightforward solutions. Even if one finds such evidence troubling despite our analysis, other jurisdictions need not adopt every feature of the Dutch system. (shrink)

BackgroundExisting clinical ethics support (CES) instruments are considered useful. However, users report obstacles in using them in daily practice. Including end users and other stakeholders in developing CES instruments might help to overcome these limitations. This study describes the development process of a new ethics support instrument called CURA, a low-threshold four-step instrument focused on nurses and nurse assistants working in palliative care. MethodWe used a participatory development design. We worked together with stakeholders in a Community of Practice throughout the (...) study. Potential end users (nurses and nurse assistants in palliative care) used CURA in several pilots and provided us with feedback which we used to improve CURA.ResultsWe distinguished three phases in the development process. Phase one, Identifying Needs, focused on identifying stakeholder and end user needs and preferences, learning from existing CES instruments, their development and evaluation, and identify gaps. Phase two, Development, focused on designing, developing, refining and tailoring the instrument on the basis of iterative co-creation. Phase three, Dissemination, focused on implementation and dissemination. The instrument, CURA, is a four-step low-threshold instrument that fosters ethical reflection.ConclusionsParticipatory development is a valuable approach for developing clinical ethics support instruments. Collaborating with end users and other stakeholders in our development study has helped to meet the needs and preferences of end users, to come up with strategies to refine the instrument in order to enhance its feasibility, and to overcome reported limitations of existing clinical ethics instruments. (shrink)

This article discusses an approach to translational bioethics (TB) that is concerned with the adaptation—or ‘translation’—of concepts, theories and methods from bioethics to practical contexts, in order to support ‘non-bioethicists’, such as researchers and healthcare practitioners, in dealing with their ethical issues themselves. Specifically, it goes into the participatory development of clinical ethics support (CES) instruments that respond to the needs and wishes of healthcare practitioners and that are tailored to the specific care contexts in which they are to be (...) used. The theoretical underpinnings of this participatory approach to TB are found in hermeneutic ethics and pragmatism. As an example, the development of CURA, a low-threshold CES instrument for healthcare professionals in palliative care, is discussed. From this example, it becomes clear that TB is a two-way street. Practice may be improved by means of CES that is effectively tailored to specific end users and care contexts. The other way around, ethical theory may be enriched by means of the insights gained from engaging with practice in developing CES in a process of co-creation. TB is also a two-way street in the sense that it requires collaboration and commitment of both bioethicists and practitioners, who engage in a process of mutual learning. However, substantial challenges remain. For instance, is there a limit to the extent to which a method of moral reasoning can be adapted in order to meet the constraints of a given healthcare setting? Who is to decide, the bioethicist or the practitioners? (shrink)

This essay investigates the origins and assesses the advantages and disadvantages of the new field known as Wissensgeschichte from the perspective of an American intellectual historian. It argues that while some historians of science may be ready to embrace a new identity as historians of knowledge, this terminology remains baggy and invites facile applications of Foucauldian theory. The essay concludes with the hope that the history of knowledge approach may instead open up new avenues for conversation and collaboration between historians (...) of science and garden variety historians. (shrink)

A new approach in science policy making named the innovation system approach has been developed during the past three decades. Its primary goal is to better understand the processes through which scientific knowledge is produced and transferred to businesses to improve their competitiveness and develop national and/or regional economies. This approach has been adopted as an analytical framework and guideline for science policy making by numerous public sector organizations around the world. Using a case study of the Canadian and Québec (...) public sectors, our research seeks to understand why the IS approach has gained the adherence of government employees and how it has been disseminated from international organizations down to regional civil servants. Findings show that adherence to the IS approach stems from the prestige of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and its associated epistemic community, and from the cultural authority science exerts on government employees; these two factors bestow cultural authority onto the IS approach. The perceived scientific validity of the IS approach also leads government employees to consider its underlying economistic worldview as an unquestionable reality. (shrink)