When an agent suffers in their capacity as a knower, they are a victim of epistemic injustice. Varieties of epistemic injustices have been theorised. A salient feature across these theories is that perpetrators and victims of epistemic injustice belong to different social groups. In this paper, I argue for a form of epistemic injustice that could occur between members of the same social group. This is a form of epistemic injustice where the knower is first a victim of historical and (...) continuing oppression. Secondly, they internalise and appreciate the systems that harm them as a knower. This is possible because the victim subscribes to perniciously formed epistemic systems. This form of epistemic injustice is a valuable explanatory tool for non-standard and obscure instances of epistemic injustice where the victim a) accepts and appreciates the injustice they experience and b) is even the seeming perpetrator of the injustice against themselves. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Raimon Panikkar (1918-2010):Life and LegacyJ. Abraham Vélez de CeaThe interreligious theologian, intercultural philosopher, and pluralist mystic Raimon Panikkar died in Tavertet, Barcelona, on 26 August 2010. He was ninety-one. A pioneer of interreligious dialogue and comparative theology, Panikkar claimed to be at the same time yet without contradiction a Christian, a Buddhist, a Hindu, and a secular man.Panikkar's multiple religious belonging was not a matter of choice and (...) shallow eclecticism but rather a matter of personal experience and profound spiritual growth. His distinction between eclecticism and syncretism might be helpful to understand the complex nature of his religious identity. Eclecticism "is an uncritical mixture of religious traditions and an agreement among them obtained by chopping off all possible discrepancies in favor of an amorphous common denominator." On the contrary, syncretism "is allowing for a possible assimilation of elements by virtue of which these elements cease to be foreign bodies so that organic growth within each tradition is possible, and the mutual fecundation of religious traditions becomes a genuine option."1Another point I would like to clarify is that Panikkar's multiple religious belonging was not a question of being primarily Christian and secondarily something else, as if truth could be quantified. Panikkar objected to this "modern" way of thinking. I remember a conversation with him about this issue in which he compared these attempts to quantify religious identity to those who try to understand the Trinity as being either one or three. He said that if you begin counting you miss the point, and then he added in a defiant tone: "I am 100 percent Christian, 100 percent Hindu, 100 percent Buddhist, and 100 percent secular." When I insisted and told him that for many people multiple religious belonging is just not possible, Panikkar replied: "Well, it is my experience; I cannot help it."Panikkar's multiple religious belonging was often misunderstood and cost him the distrust of both Christians and Hindus. For instance, in 1966, Panikkar applied for a chair in Hindu philosophy at the prestigious Banaras Hindu University. Though [End Page 215] everybody agreed he was by far the most competent candidate, he was not offered the position because for many conservative Hindus Panikkar was not Hindu enough.Similarly, many conservative Catholics today would say that Panikkar went too far with his distinction between Christ and the historical Jesus; for them Panikkar was not Christian enough. However, this would be unfair. As I understand Panikkar, he was not trying to undermine any Christian claim. Quite the contrary, he was challenging what he perceived as a tribal Christology and a reduction of Christianity to a two-thousand-year-old sect. Time will tell, like it did with great thinkers such as Nāgārjuna (ca. 150-250), Śaṅ-kara (788-820), Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), and Meister Eckhart (ca. 1260-1327), who were also criticized at first by their respective traditions. Perhaps Panikkar was simply ahead of his time, and what today seems controversial to some will become the norm in the future; it would not be the first time.Panikkar was an embodiment of interreligious dialogue, and his theology was the result of such dialogue. He was born in Barcelona on 3 November 1918. His mother was a Catholic from Catalonia, and his father was a Hindu from Kerala, India. After studying philosophy and natural sciences in Barcelona, Madrid, and Bonn, he joined the recently created Opus Dei in 1940. It should be clarified that in the aftermath of the Spanish civil war and compared to the pre-Vatican II National Catholicism of Franco's regime, Opus Dei was a progressive Catholic organization for laypeople interested in sanctifying their professional work.Panikkar was ordained a Catholic priest in 1946 and became the chaplain of a student dormitory in Madrid (Colegio Mayor la Moncloa). That very year he earned his first doctorate, in philosophy, with a dissertation titled El concepto de naturaleza: Análisis histórico y metafísico de un concepto (Complutense University of Madrid, 1946, published in 1951). He was offered a position at the Complutense University but decided to continue with his pastoral work in Madrid, Barcelona... (shrink)

What is it for a duty or obligation to be directed? Thinking about paradigmatic cases such as the obligations generated by promises will take us only so far in answering this question. This paper starts by surveying several approaches for understanding directed duties, as well as the challenges they face. It turns out that shared agency features something similar to the directedness of duties. This suggests an account of directedness in terms of shared agency – specifically, in terms of the (...) so-called practical intimacy that holds between individuals when they act together. The final section addresses a challenge to the shared agency approach posed by legal wronging in tort law. (shrink)

Immediately before the release of DSM-5, a group of psychiatric thought leaders published the results of field tests of DSM-5 diagnostic criteria. They characterized the interrater reliability for diagnosing major depressive disorder by two trained mental health practitioners as of “questionable agreement.” These field tests confirmed an open secret among psychiatrists that our current diagnostic criteria for diagnosing major depressive disorder are unreliable and neglect essential experiences of persons in depressive episodes. Alternative diagnostic criteria exist, but psychiatrists rarely encounter them, (...) forestalling the discipline’s epistemological crisis. In Alsadair MacIntyre’s classic essay, such crises occur in science when a person encounters a rival schemata that is incompatible with their current schemata and subsequently constructs a narrative that allows them to reconstruct their own tradition. In search of rival schemata that are in conversation with their own tradition, psychiatric practitioners can utilize alternative diagnostic criteria like the Cultural Formulation Interview, embrace an epistemologically humble psychiatry, and attend to the narrative experience of a person experiencing a depressive episode. (shrink)

Background: End-of-life decision-making for terminally ill neonates raises important legal and ethical issues. In Greece, no recent data on nurses’ attitudes and involvement in end-of-life decisions are available. Research question/aim: To investigate neonatal nurses’ attitudes and involvement in end-of-life decisions and the relation to their socio-demographic and work-related background data. Research design: A survey was carried out in 28 neonatal intensive care units between September 2018 and January 2019. A structured questionnaire was distributed by post. Participants and research context: The (...) questionnaire was answered anonymously by 312 nurses (response rate, 71.1%) and returned to the investigators. Ethical considerations: The study was approved by the Bioethics and Research Committee of Aretaieio Hospital in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration. Findings: Nurses more often reported involvement in various end-of-life decisions, such as continuation of treatment without adding further therapeutic interventions for terminally ill neonates, while less reported were mechanical ventilation withdrawal and drug administration to end life. Nurses with a high attitude score, reflecting a more quality-of-life approach, were more likely to be involved in setting limits to intensive care. α low score was consistent with life preservation. Nurses’ religiousness ( p = 0.097), parenthood ( p = 0.093), involvement in daily practice ( p = 0.03), and position on the existing legal framework ( p < 0.002) influenced their attitude score. Discussion: The likelihood of nurses to support interventions in neonates with poor prognosis in neonatal intensive care units was related to their attitudes. After adjusting for potential confounders, the most important predictors for nurses’ attitudes were parenthood, involvement in daily practice, and position supporting current legislation reform. Conclusion: Variability in involvement in end-of-life decisions among nurses exists on a national level. (shrink)

... A. Zvie BAR-ON The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Shmuel Hugo Bergman, one of the most prominent Jewish philosophers of the 20th century, ...

Johnson conceptualizes the social responsibilities of digital media platforms by describing two ethical approaches: one emphasizing the discursive freedom of platform-users, the other emphasizing protecting users from harmful posts. These competing concerns are on full display in the current debate over platforms’ obligations during the COVID-19 pandemic. While Johnson argues both approaches are grounded in democracy, we argue that democratic commitments transcend the freedom/harm dichotomy. Instead, a commitment to democracy points toward social media companies’ responsibilities to structure their platforms in (...) ways that facilitate perspectival diversity and collective deliberation. (shrink)

El budismo. Peter Harvey. Cambridge University Press, Madrid 1998. 468 pp. Ptas 2,995. ISBN 84-8323-014-3.

This volume includes all Dewey's writings for 1938 except for Logic: The Theory of Inquiry, as well as his 1939 Freedom and Culture, Theory of Valuation, and two items from Intelligence in the Modern World. Freedom and Culture presents, as Steven M. Cahn points out, the essence of his philosophical position: a commitment to a free society, critical intelligence, and the education required for their advance.

One of the questions that philosophers discuss is: How can we avoid, or at least reduce, errors when explaining the world? The skeptical answer to this question is: We cannot avoid errors since no statement is certain or even definitely plausible, but we can eliminate some past errors. This book advocates the skeptical position and discusses its practical applications in science, ethics, aesthetics, and politics. It brings philosophy down to earth and comprises an outline of a skeptical guide to the (...) real world. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: Mama Might Be Better Off Dead: The Failure of Health Care in Urban America. By Laurie Kaye Abraham. Not All of Us Are Saints: A Doctor's Journey with the Poor. By David Hilfiker.

Abraham Isaac Hakohen Kook (1865-1935) served as the Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Erets Israel during the period of the British mandate. Rav Kook was a polymath, equally talented as a Talmudic legalist and rationalist philosopher, on the one hand, and as a mystic and poet, on the other. Today, we would say that he was both "left and right hemisphere." The present collection brings together in English translation Rav Kook's contributions to the field of Jewish history, though perhaps "historiosophy" (...) would be the better word. Rav Kook joins the ranks of those great Jewish thinkers who preceded him in interpretation of history: Maharal of Prague, Moses Hayyim Luzzatto and Zadok Hakohen of Lublin. If Rav Kook's philosophy were to be summed up in a single word, it would be: Kelaliyut or universality. Whereas most of us are held captive by individual events, Rav Kook has a great gift for the overview of history. He brings this gift to bear in his ability to provide perspective on the modern rebirth of Israel against the backdrop of mankind's ongoing spiritual evolution. In the latter regard, his vision has sometimes been compared to that of Teilhard de Chardin and Sri Aurobido, or more recently Ken Wilber. Contained in this collection are Rav Kook's eulogy for Herzl and Rav Kook's remarks at the opening of Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The essays are placed in historic context and provided with copious scholarly endnotes. (shrink)

Abraham Verghese proposes to renew medicine by training physicians to read the right texts—literary fiction and patients' bodies—with skilled attention. Analyzing Verghese's proposal with reference to Foucault's idea of the "clinical gaze," I find that Verghese conceives of patients as texts that only physicians can read, meaning that physicians become the storytellers of the bodies, lives, and deaths of the people they meet as patients. I conclude that Verghese's project is unsustainable and alternatively propose thinking analogically of physicians as (...) ship captains who maintain therapeutic distance to reopen interpretative spaces for communities outside of medicine. (shrink)

William Abraham studied Philosophy at the University of Ghana, and even more Philosophy at Oxford University. Thereafter, he gained permission to take part in the competitive examination and interview for a fellowship at All Souls' College. The examination was once described, with some exaggeration, as 'the hardest exam in the world!' It included a three-hour essay. Following his success in becoming the first African fellow of All Souls, his interest in African politics quickly developed into a Pan-African perspective. The (...) Mind of Africa, written while he was still at All Souls, was a fruit of that enlarged perspective. After several years as a Fellow, he had occasion to visit Ghana in 1962. There Kwame Nkrumah, then President of Ghana, successfully persuaded him to return to Ghana to teach at the University of Ghana, Legon and he subsequently resigned from All Souls. In 1968, he went to the United States as a visiting professor. This was followed by invitations to teach at various academic institutions there, including Berkeley and Stanford. He subsequently settled in California, where he continued to teach and research philosophy in the University of California at Santa Cruz until his retirement. The Mind of Africa appeared at a time when a number of African countries were obtaining, or fighting for, their political freedom from their colonial rulers and becoming independent nations and expecting to build new societies in accordance with their own visions and conceptions, though not necessarily jettisoning all the features of their colonial heritage. Building new societies requires appropriate ideologies and philosophies fashioned within the crucible of their cultural and historical experiences. Thus, the relation between ideology and society is taken up at the very outset of the book... The Mind of Africa is important for Africa's future and identity. (shrink)

Ancient Peripatetics and Neoplatonists had great difficulty coming up with a consistent, interpretatively reasonable, and empirically adequate Aristotelian theory of complete mixture or complexion. I explain some of the main problems, with special attention to authors with whom Avicenna was familiar. I then show how Avicenna used a new doctrine of the occultness of substantial form to address these problems. The result was in some respects an improvement, but it also gave rise to a new set of problems, which were (...) later to prove fateful in the history of early modern philosophy. (shrink)

In this volume, a distinguished philosopher and moral rights theorist examines important changes that have occurred in our thinking about rights since first mention of them was made in early modern times. His inquiry is framed by an opening question and a concluding response. The question is whether the Greeks had any conception of a moral right. Some argue that they did not, on the ground that they had no word for a right. Others claim that they did, since they (...) employed certain locutions, the equivalents of which in our language are tied to some notion of a moral right. Professor Melden reviews in detail some of the most important historical conceptions of rights and examines serious questions raised by the fact that there have been striking changes in our thinking about rights. His discussion elucidates the place of moral rights in the broader network of moral concepts, along with the role they should play in our moral lives. Among the fundamental issues raised and discussed are those concerning the ways in which we are to understand various sorts of rights, the relation of special moral rights to our basic human rights, the now familiar claim that there are animal rights, the nature of moral progress, and the dream of a moral science. (shrink)

Instances of epistemic injustice elicit resistance, anger, despair, frustration or cognate emotional responses from their victims. This sort of response to the epistemic injustices that accompanied historical systems of oppression such as colonialism, for example, is normal. However, if their victims have internalised these oppressive situations, we could get the counterintuitive response of appreciation. In this paper, I argue for the phenomenon of appreciative silencing to make sense of instances like this. This is a form of epistemic silencing that happens (...) when the accepted hegemonic intuitions of the oppressed are formed/influenced by the ideologies of the oppressors over time. Here, we have a resilient, oppressive and hegemonic epistemic system. Put together, it creates a variant of epistemic injustice and silencing that is obscure since its victims are neither resistant nor aware of the injustice they face but are appreciative. (shrink)