Tomasello offers a compelling account of the emergence of humans’ sense of obligation. We suggest that more needs to be said about the role of affect in the creation of obligations. We also argue that positive emotions such as gratitude evolved to encourage individuals to fulfill cooperative obligations without the negative quality that Tomasello proposes is inherent in obligations.

Explanations of former South African President Thabo Mbeki’s public and private views on the aetiology of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the country remain partial at best without the recognition that the latter presuppose and imply a postmodernist/postcolonialist philosophy of science that erases the line separating the political from the scientific. Evidence from Mbeki’s public speeches, interviews, and private and anonymous writings suggests that it was postmodernist/postcolonialist theory that inspired him to doubt the “Western” scientific consensus on HIV/AIDS and to (...) implement a public health policy that dragged its feet on full roll-out of antiretroviral therapy, causing thousands of avoidable deaths. A weak reductio ad absurdum allows us to conclude from this premise that postmodernist/postcolonial critique of “Western” science ought to be shunned. A comparative argument from consequences further suggests that in a situation where a misguided health policy has lead to a humanitarian catastrophe, and where postmodernist/postcolonialist critique of science can and has been used to justify this policy, an alternative theory ought to be preferred on which such justification would not be possible. The paper closes with a call for a non-relativist alternative to postmodernist/postcolonialist philosophy of science, and evaluates the potential of recent developments in ‘Studies of Expertise” to yield such. (shrink)

In this paper, I utilise the tools of analytic philosophy to amalgamate mono-causal and multi-causal theories of disease. My aim is to better integrate viral and socio-economic explanations of AIDS in particular, and to consider how the perceived divide between mono-causal and multi-causal theories played a role in the tragedy of AIDS denialism in South Africa in the early 2000s. Currently, there is conceptual ambiguity surrounding the relationship between mono-causal and multi-causal theories in biomedicine and epidemiology. Mono-causal theories focus on (...) single, typically microbial, sources of illness and are most concerned with infectious diseases. By contrast, multi-causal theories allow for multiple factors to underpin a disease’s aetiology, including socio-economic and behavioural factors, and they usually focus on chronic non-communicable diseases. However, if these theories are taken to be strictly distinct, this prevents the inclusion of both microbial and socio-economic factors in a single explanation of any particular disease. This strict distinction became a problem when trying to explain the disproportionate prevalence of AIDS in southern Africa and ultimately contributed to the tragedy of AIDS denialism in South Africa. In tandem with viewing how the perceived divide between multi-causal and mono-causal theories underpinned AIDS denialism, I examine Thabo Mbeki’s specific role, while acknowledging that AIDS is being deprioritised on a broader international level. Overall, I will demonstrate that any long-term plan to eliminate AIDS will require viral and socio-economic factors to be considered simultaneously and that such a theoretical approach requires a clearer understanding of the underlying concepts of disease aetiology. (shrink)

Ignorance can excuse otherwise blameworthy action, but only if the ignorance itself is blameless. One way to avoid culpable ignorance is to pay attention when epistemic peers disagree. Expressed disagreements place an obligation on the agent to pay attention when an interlocutor disagrees, or risk culpable ignorance for which they might later be found blameworthy. Silence, on the other hand, is typically taken as assent. But in cases of suppressed disagreement, the silenced interlocutor has information that could save the agent (...) from ignorance in scenarios where that ignorance might lead to harmful action, and silence does not actually indicate assent. The problem is further complicated because the agent might not be aware of the fact that a silenced interlocutor has information that could prevent ignorance, and consequent harmful action. In this paper, I provide a new account of excuses from ignorance in situations of suppressed disagreement. I do this in the context of two cases; Kelly’s hypothetical case of the Tyrannical Dictator, and the real-world case of former South African President Thabo Mbeki and his AIDS denialist policies in the late 1990s and early 2000s. (shrink)

Cardiovascular modelling has been a major research subject for the last decade. Different cardiac models have been developed at a cellular level as well as at the whole organ level. Most of these models are defined by a comprehensive cellular modelling using continuous formalisms or by a tissue-level modelling often based on discrete formalisms. Nevertheless, both views still suffer from difficulties that reduce their clinical applications: the first approach requires heavy computational resources while the second one is not able to (...) reproduce certain pathologies.This paper presents an original methodology trying to gather advantages from both approaches, by means of a hybrid model mixing discrete and continuous formalisms. This method has been applied to define a hybrid model of cardiac action potential propagation on a 2D grid of endocardial cells, combining cellular automata and a set of cells defined by the Beeler-Reuter model. For simulations under physiological and ischemic conditions, results show that the action potential propagation as well as electrogram reconstructions are consistent with clinical diagnosis. Finally, the advantage of the proposed approach is discussed within the frame of cardiac modelling and simulation. (shrink)

In spite of much candid protest and overt criticism against the service delivery record and corruption of the South African government, the governing party, the African National Congress, once again secured a persuasive victory in the 2014 national elections. This situation begs the question whether the ballot box is really the only efficient instrument for disgruntled voters to influence government policy and behaviour. This article examines the possibilities that the mobilisation of civil society offers in this regard. The central theoretical (...) argument is that civil society can be an important instrument through which the citizenry can exercise their critical function with regard to the government in an effort to address poor service delivery and corruption and to influence government policy. Christian organisations can play a crucial role in this process. Two examples of past efficient action by civil society serve to illustrate this argument. With the assistance of churches and Christian organisations,these organisations profoundly influenced government policy and are consequently presented as models for action today. The first example is the ‘United Democratic Front’ that forced the pre-1994 South African apartheid government to a negotiated settlement despite the strict security laws that the state utilised to keep the UDF in check. The second example is the ‘Treatment Action Campaign’ that forced the post-1994 Thabo Mbeki government to adopt a policy of free provision of antiretroviral drugs to HIV-positive patients. These two influential civil organisations offer models of how civil society can act as critical watchdog. In future, these models can be used to mobilise civil society, including churches and Christian organisations, to act correctively in defining and enacting government policy, despite the ANC’s strong position in government and the large majority that the governing party can secure at the voting polls. (shrink)

This essay highlights the root causes of the pervasive discomfort with Africanness common among a significant portion of the South African population. It claims that this collective national psyche manifests as a dysfunctional self-identity, and is therefore akin to a psychosocial malaise we propose to name “the Limpopo River Fever”. The root cause of this pathological psycho-political culture, we venture to demonstrate, is the historical process of a systematic self-orientation away from Africa, perceived as “Africa north of the Limpopo River”. (...) This psychosis as presently manifesting as what is distinctly an Afrophobia, and not mere xenophobia, I argue, has principally been nurtured since the 1950s by the ascendency of an anti-Africanist ideology within the national liberation movement, the African National Congress, which has subsequently been the governing party since the defeat of the apartheid regime in 1994. It is concluded that even historic efforts at redirecting the South African body-politic toward a pan-African consciousness which evolved around Thabo Mbeki during his presidency could not achieve the aspired re-Africanisation of South African society. Keywords: Afrophobia, South Africa, Xenophobia, Pan-Africanism, ANC. (shrink)

Inhalt: TEIL I Dominik SCHMIDIG: Sprachliche Vermittlung philosophischer Einsichten nach Fichtes Frühphilosophie. Thomas Sören HOFFMANN: Die Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre und das Problem der Sprache bei Fichte. Jere Paul SURBER: Fichtes Sprachphilosophie und der Begriff einer Wissenschaftslehre. Holger JERGIUS: Fichtes »geometrische« Semantik. TEIL II Günter MECKENSTOCK: Beobachtungen zur Methodik in Fichtes Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre. Hartmut TRAUB: Wege zur Wahrheit. Zur Bedeutung von Fichtes wissenschaftlich- und populär-philosophischer Methode. Jürgen STAHL: System und Methode - Zur methodologischen Begründung transzendentalen Philosophierens in Fichtes (...) »Begriffsschrift«. Kunihiko NAGASAWA: Eine neue Möglichkeit der Philosophie nach der Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre. Teil III Katsuaki OKADA: Der erste Grundsatz und die Bildlehre. Hisang RYUE: Die Differenz zwischen »Ich bin« und «Ich bin Ich«. Christian KLOTZ: Der Ichbegriff in Fichtes Erörterung der Substantialität. Alois K. SOLLER: Fichtes Lehre vom Anstoß. Nicht-Ich und Ding an sich in der Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre. Eine kritische Erörterung. Heinz EIDAM: Fichtes Anstoß. Anmerkungen zu einem Begriff der Wissenschaftslehre von 1794. Virginia LÓPEZ-DOMÍNGUEZ: Die Deduktion des Gefühls in der Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre. Reinhard LOOCK: Gefühl und Realität. Fichtes Auseinandersetzung mit Jacobi in der Grundlage der Wissenschaft des Praktischen. TEIL IV Marek SIEMEK: Wissen und Tun. Zur Handlungsweise der transzendentalen Subjektivität in der ersten Wissenschaftslehre Fichtes. Daniel BREAZEALE: Der fragwürdige »Primat der praktischen Vernunft« in Fichtes Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre. Marcin POREBA: Das Problem der transzendentalen Freiheit in semantischer Formulierung. Giuseppe DUSO: Absolutheit und Widerspruch in der Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre. Manuel JIMÉNEZ-REDONDO: Der Begriff des Grundes in Fichtes Wissenschaftslehre. TEIL V Helmut GIRNDT: Das »Ich« des ersten Grundsatzes der Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre in der Sicht der Wissenschaftslehre von 18042. Josef BEELER-PORT: Zum Stellenwert der Grundlage aus der Sicht von 1804. Eine Interpretation des Wechsels von analytisch-synthetischer und genetischer Methode in 5 der Grundlage. (shrink)