In this paper we try to convert the mathematician who calls himself, or herself, “a formalist” to a position we call “meth-odological pluralism”. We show how the actual practice of mathe-matics fits methodological pluralism better than formalism while preserving the attractive aspects of formalism of freedom and crea-tivity. Methodological pluralism is part of a larger, more general, pluralism, which is currently being developed as a position in the philosophy of mathematics in its own right.1 Having said that, henceforth, in this (...) paper, we abbreviate “methodological pluralism” with “pluralism”. (shrink)

Name any valued human trait—intelligence, wit, charm, grace, strength—and you will find an inexhaustible variety and complexity in its expression among individuals. Yet we insist that such diversity does not provide grounds for differential treatment at the most basic level. Whatever merit, blame, praise, love, or hate we receive as beings with a particular past and a particular constitution, we are always and everywhere due equal respect merely as persons. -/- But why? Most who attempt to answer this question appeal (...) to the idea that all human beings possess an intrinsic dignity and worth—grounded in our capacities, for example, to reason, reflect, or love—that raises us up in the order of nature. Andrea Sangiovanni rejects this predominant view and offers a radical alternative. -/- To understand our commitment to basic equality, Humanity without Dignity argues that we must begin with a consideration not of equality but of inequality. Rather than search for a chimerical value-bestowing capacity possessed to an equal extent by each one of us, we ought to ask: Why and when is it wrong to treat others as inferior? Sangiovanni comes to the conclusion that our commitment to moral equality is best explained by a rejection of cruelty rather than a celebration of rational capacity. He traces the impact of this fundamental shift for our understanding of human rights and the norms of anti-discrimination that underlie it. (shrink)

"How can human beings, who are liable to error, possess knowledge, since the grounds on which we believe do not rule out that we are wrong? Andrea Kern argues that we can disarm this skeptical doubt by conceiving knowledge as an act of a rational capacity. In this book, she develops a metaphysics of the mind as existing through knowledge of itself."--Provided by publisher.

Edmund Husserl is regarded as the founder of transcendental phenomenology, one of the major traditions to emerge in twentieth-century philosophy. In this book Andrea Staiti unearths and examines the deep theoretical links between Husserl's phenomenology and the philosophical debates of his time, showing how his thought developed in response to the conflicting demands of Neo-Kantianism and life-philosophy. Drawing on the work of thinkers including Heinrich Rickert, Wilhelm Dilthey and Georg Simmel, as well as Husserl's writings on the natural and (...) human sciences that are not available in English translation, Staiti illuminates a crucial chapter in the history of twentieth-century philosophy and enriches our understanding of Husserl's thought. His book will interest scholars and students of Husserl, phenomenology, and twentieth-century philosophy more generally. (shrink)

This multidisciplinary work departs from the Marxist materialist tradition by criticizing its logical flaws and its incapacity to work out a naturalistic materialism. Micocci argues that capitalism itself is based on a dialectical intellectuality enforced despite the non-dialectical potentialities present in the material in general. Capitalism, therefore, is a massifying system isolated from nature by an intellectual fiat, and has no capacity for theoretical and technical innovation.

Many arguments are affected by context sensitivity, because they include sentences that have different truth conditions in different contexts. Therefore, it is natural to think that a general criterion for evaluating arguments must take context sensitivity into account. One way to give substance to that thought is provided by the definition of validity offered by David Kaplan within his theory of indexicals. However, the route indicated by Kaplan is hindered by a problem whose importance is often underestimated. This paper explores (...) a different route, and outlines a definition of validity that does not run into that problem. Its moral is that Kaplan's definition is not the only plausible definition. This is not to say that the definition outlined is the only plausible definition or that it is correct in some absolute sense. There might be equally important problems with it that the paper does not take into account. But until such problems are found and brought up, the departure from Kaplan's route remains a viable option. (shrink)

Pretendo defender a compatibilidade da concepção de objeto desenvolvida na Dedução Transcendental das categorias do entendimento da primeira edição da Crítica da Razão Pura com as demandas da filosofia crítica, ainda que pese em contrário o uso da expressão “objeto transcendental” por parte de Kant. Sugiro que o uso de tal expressão guarde justamente uma transição entre o conceito de objeto como coisa em si e o novo conceito de objeto do conhecimento em sentido crítico.

Cancer registries are an important part of the public health infrastructure, since they allow to monitor the temporal trends of this illness as well as facilitate epidemiological research. In order to effectively set up such registries, it is necessary to create a system of data collection that permits to record health-related information from patients who are diagnosed with cancer. Given the sensitive nature of such data, it is debated whether their recording should be based on consent or whether alternative arrangements (...) are possible (eg, opt-out systems where information is automatically collected but patients can later withdraw). In the recent reform of the Swiss cancer registration legislation, the lawmaker set out to implement rules about the recording of data in cancer registries that would allegedly go beyond a consent-based model, in order to balance accurate registration with respect of patient rights. However, by analysing the operational norms of the new legislation and comparing them with those of other systems, it emerges that the Swiss rules de facto closely resemble a system of registration based on informed consent—in partial contradiction with the objective pursued by the lawmaker. In this paper, we show how the details of a policy are crucial to determine its true nature and we highlight some critical elements—from an ethical standpoint—of the recently reformed Swiss policy on cancer registration. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie Jahrgang: 65 Heft: 6 Seiten: 975-998.

This paper examines how behavioral integration of top management teams may contribute to our understanding of how stakeholder initiatives become a part of a firm’s strategy. Multiple case design was used by conducting a series of interviews with the executive teams at three firms in the U.S. telecommunications industry.

Philosophia brings together, for the first time, the work of three major women thinkers of this century, producing a developing commentary on the human condition as an alternative to the mainstream, masculine, philosophical tradition.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The AftermathAndrea EisenbergThe cantor begins, humming softly, gently strumming her guitar. Soon the rabbi starts reading, his voice somber as he recites the traditional prayer on Yom Kippur."How many will pass away from this world, how many will be born into it;Who will live and who will die."I feel my eyes tearing up. I look down and take a breath, but I can't seem to stop the speeding train (...) of memories."I'm sorry, we did everything we could….." My head was spinning. No, no, no, this can't be … this can't be really happening …I looked up at my patient. Her mouth was open in a silent scream. Her eyes searching the eyes staring back at her. The nurses, the neonatologist, her husband all surrounded her, reflecting back her shock and incomprehension.I stopped breathing. My hands felt cold. My fingers were tingling. No one was looking at me. It felt like there was no air in the room … I just needed air. Embarrassingly, I walked out of the room."Who will reach the ripeness of age, who will be taken before their time."It all began on an early spring night, the air fresh with new growth and possibilities. Heralding the warmer days ahead, the purple crocuses were just peeking out of the grass. As I walked to my car to make my way to the hospital, the crisp coolness of the melting winter brushed across my face, wiping away the warm touch of my baby's cheek moments earlier. Driving off, my heart tugged me home; my brain tugged me to work.The dusky sky accompanied me along the drive to work—the gradually fading light behind me, the darkness ahead. My mind began shifting from home to the woman in labor, starting her own motherhood journey. I imagined her excitement as well as her weariness of labor.The bright lights and the hustle and bustle of a busy labor and delivery department greeted me as I entered the unit. I found comfort in the dimly lit room of my patient. I could make out her blond hair flowing over the pillow and blankets overlaying her body. Her husband, sitting on the bench next to her, was lit up by the brightness of the phone screen he was intently looking at. The quiet beat of her baby's heart on the monitor was soothing in its cadence and reassuring to me.The rabbi then walks to the center of the bima with the cantor as the choir continues to sing. He begins to hit his chest gently with each line."Avinu Malkeninu1, sh'ma koleinu, chus v'racheim aleinu.Avinu Malkeinu, hear our voice, treat us with tender compassion."The cantor and choir respond back, their soulful voices splay open my heart even more.She was an incredibly strong pusher. But it was her first baby and the trail had not been blazed before. The baby was rocking back and forth in her pelvis, trying to get under the pubic bone and out. With time and effort, I began seeing the top of the baby's head with each push, but then it disappeared in between. [End Page E8]Without looking at the monitor, I could hear the baby's heart rate slow with each push, the heart responding to the head being compressed in the birth canal. "Stay strong," I told her as I saw her begin to tire. But the baby was tiring too, its heart not returning to its regular rate in between contractions."Avinu Malkeinu, Avinu Malkeinu" the choir chanted.Avinu Malkeinu, have compassion on us," the rabbi responded.After a few more pushes, I knew I couldn't watch this much longer, I knew the baby was really struggling, it's heart rate becoming more alarming. "I need you to stay strong and really push hard. I may need to help you if the baby isn't out soon," I told her."No, I can do this!" I could see the determination on her face.And there we were, my patient, pushing her heart out, wanting to do this "on her own," and me... (shrink)

This article addresses a strange investment within ‘continental' philosophy, in asserting the impotence of a Derridean approach when it comes to addressing practical (juridical, political, ethical, economic) issues. Such assertions of impotence regularly stand as the foil for whatever is proposed as a more complex, and therefore powerful, means to make sense of concrete phenomena. Invariably, however, the criticism of a Derridean approach is based on reductive misconceptions of its complex logic, and the proposed correctives repeat the very pattern of (...) thinking that Derrida has consistently adopted throughout his writing. A case in point is Zizek's criticism of what he calls ‘Derrida's operation.' While Zizek's critique is more nuanced and contemporary than the hackneyed charge of ‘textualism,' his reductive conception of the logical structure of Derridean thinking remains open to challenge. Further, his Lacanian corrective, whose logic is represented by the figure of a ‘Borromean knot,' precisely matches the ‘plural logic of the aporia' that underpins a Derridean approach to concrete phenomena. Accordingly, what follows is an attempt to show how Lacanian and Derridean discourses can be brought into alliance as a consequence of their isomorphic logical structure. This attempt is motivated by the conviction that one can do well without the pseudo-antagonism generated by the unjust criticism directed at one another by like-minded thinkers, which, moreover, provides such thinkers with a far too facile excuse for dismissing one another, even before opening texts. I also have a hidden agenda of sorts, which is to outline and, indeed, promote the ‘complexity-thinking' characteristic of both Derridean and Lacanian discourses, as the most viable and appropriate approach to practical issues. South African Journal of Philosophy Vol. 27 (1) 2008 pp. 10-26. (shrink)

Recent feminist accounts of autonomy have focused both on autonomous agents’ relationships to others and on their self-regarding attitudes or self-relations. This chapter focuses on the attitude of practical self-care, arguing that autonomous agents must care about themselves in a sense that amounts to caring about their practical reasons. While self-care is primarily a self-relation, it also implies a form of interpersonal relationality. Caring about one’s reasons requires caring about intersubjective assessments thereof, and the relation of self-care thus implies openness (...) to the reasons of others and a disposition to hold oneself answerable for one’s identity-constituting concerns. (shrink)

Human genetic research databases cast a new light on the controversial issue of which uses of the human body are morally permissible. More specifically, banking human tissue raises issues relating to the ownership of the samples that the participants have donated, to the ownership of the data that are derived through processing the donated samples, and to the management arrangements that better balance the interest of genetic research with the protection of participants' rights. Winickoff & Winickoff suggest that the charitable-trust (...) model is a superior legal arrangement for biobanking compared with private biobanking. This paper critically assesses Winickoff & Winickoff's claim by highlighting some areas of implementation where such a model could be problematic. The charitable trust is certainly an advantageous arrangement because (1) it favors the separation between control and use of the samples, (2) it provides a procedural mechanism that facilitates the participation donor groups in the biobank management and (3) it mediates the different interests that are affected. On the other hand, the charitable-trust model leaves unresolved several issues--among them the ownership of the sample, the right of withdrawal, access and funding mechanism. I conclude that further theoretical and empirical analysis is required in the area. (shrink)

Does the recent publication of Heidegger’s Black Notebooks require a re-evaluation of his thought? In the present text we will deal with this question and reach the conclusion that a change of theoretical perspective on Heidegger’s work is indeed justified. The franker and less cautious style of the Black Notebooks puts in the foreground stances that were already known, but were previously relegated to the background: it becomes possible thereby to establish that Heidegger’s philosophical views host a significant lot of (...) unwarranted prejudices, which are incorporated in his picture of the ‘history of being’. We argue that in his process of radical questioning Heidegger progressively drops all available rational methods and epistemic criteria, and that this paves the way to the unwitting reception of personal prejudices in his theoretical frame: Heidegger knowingly abandons all the theoretical instruments that could enable him to discriminate between deeply felt prejudices and proper philosophical intuitions. We conclude our analysis by proposing some criticisms that should be acceptable also to scholars sympathetic with Heidegger’s thought. Heidegger’s vindication of an ‘erratic’ way of thinking, where the journey is more qualifying than the result, turns out to be incompatible with the assertiveness of the many unjustified claims disseminated across the Black Notebooks. Moreover, Heidegger wants to show the narrowness of an overwhelmingly dialectical and argumentative attitude, while his late style of thinking unwittingly discredits an alternative philosophical style, that widely appeals to a ‘principle of charity’ in the collaboration between author and reader. (shrink)

This paper outlines a truth-conditional view of logical form, that is, a view according to which logical form is essentially a matter of truth-conditions. The main motivation for the view is a fact that seems crucial to logic. As _§_1 suggests, fundamental logical relations such as entailment or contradiction can formally be explained only if truth-conditions are formally represented.§2 spells out the view. _§_3 dwells on its anity with a conception of logical form that has been defended in the past. (...) _§§_4-6 draw attention to its impact on three major issues that concern, respectively, the extension of the domain of formal explanation, the semantics of tensed discourse, and the analysis of quantication. (shrink)

The book's aim is to give a working representation of what metaphysics is today. The historical contributions reveal the roots of metaphysical themes and how today's methods are linked to their Aristotelian and Leibnizian past. The volume also touches on the relationships between ontological and linguistic analysis, the questions of realism and ontological commitment, the nature of abstract objects, the existential meaning of particular quantification, the primitiveness of identity, the question of epistemic versus ontological vagueness, the necessity of origin, the (...) nature of natural necessity, the possibility of intermittent existence, the notion of a temporal part and its place in an account of persistence, the question of identity and change across time and possible worlds, and many more. Readership: A toolbox for any researcher in metaphysics and an essential source for any PhD student with ontological interests. (shrink)

The question of how to allocate scarce medical resources has become an important public policy issue in recent decades. Cost-Utility Analysis is the most commonly used method for determining the allocation of these resources, but this book counters the argument that overcoming its inherent imbalances is simply a question of implementing methodological changes. The Economics of Resource-Allocation in Healthcare represents the first comprehensive analysis of equity weighting in health care resource allocation that offers a fundamental critique of its basic framework. (...) It offers a heterodox account of health economics, putting the discourse on economic evaluation into it broader socio-political context. Such an approach broadens the debate on fairness in health economics and ties it in with deeper rooted problems in moral philosophy. Ultimately, this interdisciplinary study calls for the adoption of a fundamentally different paradigm to address the distribution of scarce medical resources. This book will be of interest to policy makers, health care professionals or Post-Graduate students looking to broaden their understanding of the economics of the healthcare system. (shrink)

This third volume of the Amsterdam edition of the apologias contains the critical edition of the Latin text of the apologia against Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples.

Various attempts have been made recently to bring Husserl into the contemporary analytic discussion on sensory illusion and hallucination. On the one hand, this has resulted in a renewed interest in what one might call a ‘phenomenology of sense-deception.’ On the other hand, it has generated contrasting—if not utterly incompatible—readings of Husserl’s own account of sense perception. The present study critically evaluates the contemporary discourse on illusion and hallucination, reassesses its proximity to Husserl’s reflection on sensory perception, and highlights the (...) philosophical limits and structural deficiencies of the current debate in light of some of Husserl’s insights. The analysis first provides a synopsis of the argumentative structures, aims, and assumptions informing the conjunctivism-disjunctivism debate. This assessment is then critically elaborated through the lens of Husserlian phenomenology in its historical and theoretical distance from the recent debate. Contrary to certain readings of Husserl, the reconstruction of some cardinal phenomenological themes provides all the elements necessary to dislocate his own account from the conjunctivism-disjunctivism dispute, by means of both a ‘global’ and a ‘local’ analysis, and both exegetically and theoretically. Most importantly, a ‘return’ to Husserl shows the philosophical untenability of the whole controversy as not only leaving untouched the core problem of perception but also altering some of its essential traits. This critique of the image of experience portrayed in the contemporary discussion is conducted through a phenomenological clarification of perception as a distinct ‘structure of rules’ of consciousness and, more specifically, by means of a descriptive analysis centered on the core notion of horizonal-intentionality. (shrink)

Pretendemos neste texto analisar as interfaces entre a ontologia do cinema do filósofo Stanley Cavell e as reflexões centrais apresentadas no filme Retrato de uma Jovem em Chamas, em especial no que se refere à relação entre o estatuto da representação no cinema e uma determinada forma de se conceber a subjetividade. Com base sobretudo nas reflexões realizadas por Cavell acerca das consequências solipsistas do que seria o “ceticismo moderno” e sobre o percurso de que resultariam a fotografia e o (...) cinema como linguagens fundamentais da sociedade contemporânea, partimos de uma discussão acerca do escopo do processo antiteatral nas artes, argumentando que a natureza do cinema consolida uma forma particular de se conceber o olhar, forma essa que materializa o anseio de vermos sem sermos vistos. Dado esse entendimento, concernente ao atrelamento entre o processo antiteatral e desenvolvimento da imagem cinematográfica, procuramos mostrar como o filme de Céline Sciamma busca oferecer na tela a evidência de que a posição dessa invulnerabilidade do olhar decorre daquilo que Cavell qualifica como a evitação de amor ou a recusa de reconhecimento. Nesse sentido, faz parte da nossa investigação indicar que a forma de olhar criada em Retrato de uma Jovem em Chamas, a partir do amor que se constitui entre as suas personagens principais, é também uma maneira de sustentar a possibilidade de vermos e sermos vistas, e, portanto, um debate sobre a desteatralização da subjetividade e a ruptura com as implicações solipsistas do ceticismo filosófico. (shrink)

This volume offers a new framework for understanding expertise. It proposes a reconceptualization of the traditional notion of expertise and calls for the development of a new contextual and action-oriented notion of expertise, which is attentive to axiological values, intellectual virtues, and moral qualities. -/- Experts are usually called upon, especially during times of emergency, either as decision-makers or as advisors in formulating policies that often have a significant impact on society. And yet, for certain types of choices, there is (...) a growing tension between experts’ recommendations and alternative views. The chapters in this volume critically assess the idea of whether possessing epistemic authority can automatically make someone’s assertions necessarily more grounded than others. They not only evaluate the epistemological implications of this idea but also reflect on its ethical, socio-cultural, and political consequences. The interdisciplinary framework advanced across the chapters seeks to overcome certain limitations that underlie current models of expertise by adopting more inclusive and representative decisions that can improve the perceived neutrality of experts’ decisions. Increasing neutrality means reducing cases in which an unidentified bias – be it a scientific one or not – puts any of the individuals involved in a specific public choice at a systematic disadvantage. -/- Philosophy, Expertise, and the Myth of Neutrality will appeal to scholars and advanced students working in epistemology, philosophy of science, philosophy of the social sciences, public policy, and sociology. (shrink)