People struggling with addiction are neither powerless over their addiction, nor are they fully in control. Lewis vigorously objects to the brain disease model of addiction, because it makes people lose belief in their self-efficacy, and hence hinders their recovery. Although he acknowledges that there is a compulsive state in addiction, he objects to the claim that this compulsion is carved in stone. Lewis argues that the BDMA underestimates the agency of addicted people, and hence hinder their recovery. Lewis’s work (...) offers us a very much to be welcomed neurobiology of recovery. It offers addicted people a hopeful and respectful narrative for their recovery that treats them as agents rather than as damaged brains. However, I argue that overestimating people’s agency can also result in people losing belief in their self-efficacy. Lewis’s strong focus on the agency of addicted people might not match their experiences of struggle, hence reinforcing their feelings of guilt when they fail to control their use. I propose to replace the notion of addiction as a disease with a notion of a disease-like stage in addiction. I call this stage the duress stage in addiction, in which the addictive behaviour is largely impervious to the agent’s values and to available techniques of self-control. However, the agent can overcome this stage by developing new techniques of self-control, by building on their self-concept and belief in self-efficacy, by changing their environments and habits, and by engaging in projects that are meaningful to the agent. (shrink)

Addiction appears to be a deeply moralized concept. To understand the entwinement of addiction and morality, we briefly discuss the disease model and its alternatives in order to address the following questions: Is the disease model the only path towards a ‘de-moralized’ discourse of addiction? While it is tempting to think that medical language surrounding addiction provides liberation from the moralized language, evidence suggests that this is not necessarily the case. On the other hand non-disease models of addiction may seem (...) to resuscitate problematic forms of the moralization of addiction, including, invoking blame, shame, and the wholesale rejection of addicts as people who have deep character flaws, while ignoring the complex biological and social context of addiction. This is also not necessarily the case. We argue that a deficit in reasons responsiveness as basis for attribution of moral responsibility can be realized by multiple different causes, disease being one, but it also seems likely that alternative accounts of addiction as developed by Flanagan, Lewis, and Levy, may also involve mechanisms, psychological, social, and neurobiological that can diminish reasons responsiveness. It thus seems to us that nondisease models of addiction do not necessarily involve moralization. Hence, a non-stigmatizing approach to recovery can be realized in ways that are consistent with both the disease model and alternative models of addiction. (shrink)

This article supports calls for an increased integration of patients into taxonomic decision making in psychiatry by arguing that their exclusion constitutes a special kind of epistemic injustice: preemptive testimonial injustice, which precludes the opportunity for testimony due to a wrongly presumed irrelevance or lack of expertise. Here, this presumption is misguided for two reasons: the role of values in psychiatric classification and the potential function of first-person knowledge as a corrective means against implicitly value-laden, inaccurate, or incomplete diagnostic criteria (...) sets. This kind of epistemic injustice leads to preventable epistemic losses in psychiatric classification, diagnosis, and treatment. (shrink)

When doing research among vulnerable populations, researchers are obliged to protect their subjects from harm. We will argue that traditional ethical guidelines are not sufficient to do this, since they mainly focus on direct harms that can occur: for example, issues around informed consent, fair recruitment and risk/harm analysis. However, research also entails indirect harms that remain largely unnoticed by research ethical committees and the research community. Indirect harms do not occur during data collection, but in the analysis of the (...) data, and how the data is presented to the scientific and wider societal community. Highly stigmatized research subjects, like substance‐dependent parents, are especially at risk of encountering indirect harm, because the prejudice against them is so persistent. In this paper we discuss two forms of indirect harm. First, researchers have to be aware how their results will be preceived by society. Even when subjects are presented in an objective way, further, out of porportion stigmatization can occur. Researchers sometimes try to counteract this by whitewashing their results, at the risk of downplaying their respondents’ problems. The second risk researchers face is that their own normative judgements influence how they question such parents, report results and interpret statements. Researchers’ own normative judgements may influence the way they present their subjects. This article reviews a broad range of research that exhibits such indirect harms, discussing how and why indirect harms occur and formulating corresponding recommendations on how to prevent them. (shrink)

Psychiatric classification, as exemplified by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, is dealing with a lack of trust and credibility—in the scientific, but also in the public realm. Regarding the latter in particular, one possible remedial measure for this crisis in trust lies in an increased integration of patients into the DSM revision process. The DSM, as a manual for clinical practice, is forced to make decisions that exceed available data and involve value-judgments. Regarding such decisions, public epistemic (...) trustworthiness requires that these value-judgments should be representative of those of the affected public, and that the public has a reason to believe such a representation to be realized. Due to the long tradition of distrust in psychiatry, such a reason can in this case best be provided by an actual integration of patients into the decision-making process, rather than by their representation through scientific experts. (shrink)

This paper explores some ideas of Wilfrid Sellars to raise two difficulties for a naturalistic approach to the mind. The first difficulty, which is methodological, is a corollary of Sellars’s distinction between two images of man-in-the-world, the manifest and the scientific image. For Sellars, taking science seriously requires that we think of it as constructing a unified image of man-in-the-world of its own. I argue that it is the rivalry between the manifest and the scientific image which gives rise to (...) the mind-body-problem. The challenge for a naturalistic solution to the mind-body-problem is that it is not legitimate to isolate single scientific results from their theoretical context in order to integrate them piecemeal into the manifest image. According to Sellars, a satisfactory solution to the mind-body-problem must attempt nothing less than a fusion of both images which somehow respects and preserves the unity of each. The second, substantial difficulty for a naturalistic approach to the mind is that of coming to terms with the normativity of the mental. Many interpreters take Sellars to hold that normativity sets the mental apart from the rest of nature. Against this I argue that according to Sellars the living is governed by norms of its own. It follows that normativity cannot serve as the mark of the mental. I argue that according to Sellars the distinguishing feature of the mental lies elsewhere, namely in the way in which normative force comes about. Unlike biological norms, the norms of thought owe their force to a common practice of mutual evaluation. However, the assumption that there are norms in animate nature should make it easier for naturalists to accept that the mental is characterized by norms of its own. (shrink)

Feminist scholars have identified pervasive gender discrimination in science as an institution, as well as gender bias in the very content of many scientific theories. An ameliorative project at heart, feminist philosophy of science has inquired into the social and epistemological roots and consequences of these problems and into their potential solutions. Most feminist philosophers agree on a need for diversity in scientific communities to counter the detrimental effects of gender bias. Diversity could thus serve as a unifying concept for (...) a potential consensus of the field. Yet there are substantial differences in the kinds and roles of diversity envisaged. This element argues that we need diversity, both in terms of social locations and of values, to overcome former biases and blind spots. Diversity as such, however, is insufficient. To reap its epistemic benefits, diversity also needs to be institutionalised in a way that counters various forms of epistemic injustice. (shrink)

The value-freedom of scientific knowledge is commonly hold to be a necessary condition for objectivity. Helen Longino’s contextual empiricism aims to overcome this connection. She questions the suitability of the normative ideal of value-freedom and develops an alternative conception of objectivity, which integrates social and epistemic aspects of scientific enquiry. The function of this notion of ‘social objectivity’ is to make value-laden assumptions assessable through a process of criticism, even if there cannot be any guarantee of their elimination. This assessability (...) requires common standards of evaluation, which are threatened by Longino’s rejection of the distinction between cognitive and non-cognitive values guiding theory choice. I will argue that in order to resolve this inherent tension, social objectivity has to be understood as based on a procedural epistemology and, differing from Longino’s own approach, must include the normative requirement to strive for consensus instead of allowing for epistemological pluralism. (shrink)

»Artistic Research« ist in aller Munde - ein Modewort der Gegenwartsdebatte, das Vereinnahmungen ebenso provoziert wie Zurückweisungen. Doch was meinen wir, wenn wir von der Kunst als Forscherin sprechen? Kann Kunst als eine Einsichten generierende, reflexive Praxis angesehen werden, die sich in ästhetischen Artikulationen formuliert? Welche Einsicht über welche Welt könnte sie bereitstellen? Eine umfassende epistemologische Ästhetik, die sich dem künstlerischen Forschen als Methode und Praxis annimmt, gibt es bisher nicht. In diesem Grundlagenwerk stellt sich Anke Haarmann den Fragen (...) nach den originären Methoden, historischen Vorläufern, spezifischen Artikulationsformen und konkreten Handlungsweisen künstlerischen Forschens. (shrink)

Today, there is a growing consensus among philosophers in Africa, Latin America and other regions of the world that the history of philosophy has to consider both written and oral sources in the reconstruction of the history of philosophy. Even though it is usually not denied that philosophy also expresses itself in oral practices, such as conversation or instruction, the question remains as to how oral philosophical traditions can become part of a history of philosophy. This is subject to a (...) number of methodological questions. On the basis of discourses in contemporary African philosophy as well as examples from other regions of the world, this article discusses selected methodological challenges that oral traditions pose for the historiography of philosophy, with a focus on the relation between philosophy and written texts and philosophy and practice. It is argued that a turn to philosophical practices can offer new insights into philosophy in oral societies. (shrink)

[Vol. 1.] Text volume -- [Vol. 2.] Illustrated volume.

The presentation of nature as part of natural history is usually connected with a natural cabinet or natural history museum. A closer look at travel and field work, however, shows that display of nature as a spatial concept and material conditions begins already in the first moment of collecting objects, specimens, and economis news about a region to be investigated. In the year 1720 the German physician Daniel Gottlieb Messerschmidt was sent to Siberia by the Tsar Peter I of Russia (...) to explore this hithero terra incognita. During his travels Messerschmidt established two main instruments for collecting data and things, which I shall describe as organizing, material principles for his field work: written lists and notes, and boxes and cases. An analysis of these material objects and their specific uses reveals the intellectual and practical traditions in which learned activities and strategies took place in the beginning of the eighteenth century. (shrink)

Aus dem Motiv eines »Aufstandes der Dinge« leitet sich im linken russischen Konstruktivismus der Imperativ einer Befreiung der Dinge her, der sich von ihrer Repräsentation abkehrt und ein Bilderverbot verhängt, um neue Dinge für 〉neue Menschen〈 zu erschaffen. Diese Dinge – Universalkleidungsstücke und mobile Gebrauchsgegenstände – überspringen den Gegensatz zwischen Objekt und Dinglichkeit. Wie die zeitgenössische russische Phänomenologie (Gustav Špet, Nikolaj Žinkin) feststellt, macht kein 〉idealer Gegenstand〈 ihr Wesen aus, sondern der soziale Gebrauch, der es in einen unabschließbaren Veränderungsprozess involviert. (...) Russian constructivism's motif of an »insurgence of things« leads to the imperative of a liberation of things, which turns away from their representation and declares a Bilderverbot (prohibition of representation) in order to create new things for »new men.« These things – for example, clothing and articles of daily use – overleap the opposition between object and thingness. Their essence, as contemporary Russian phenomenology (Gustav Špet, Nikolaj Žinkin) affirms, is not constituted by any »ideal object«, but by social usage, which involves it in an interminable metamorphosis. (shrink)

Newborn screening involves a complex logistical process, which depends on the close cooperation of many professionals, such as midwives, laboratory technicians, general practitioners and pediatricians. These professionals may encounter moral problems in the process, which have not been systematically studied before. This study fills this gap. We conducted interviews with 36 professionals involved in NBS in the Netherlands and made an inventory of the moral problems they encounter, as well as of the ways in which they tend to respond to (...) them. The moral problems professionals encounter stem from interpersonal conflicts and intrapersonal conflicts. Given the complexity of the work of NBS professionals, the study suggests that the moral problems that occur on the work floor cannot easily be solved by means of offering better or more stringent policy guidelines. Rather, it should be appreciated that professionals contribute significantly to shaping the morality of NBS with the help of their daily choices, and they should be supported in carrying out this task—for example with the help of a moral training or regular multidisciplinary moral deliberation, facilitated by an ethicist. (shrink)

Theory Young children have an understanding of basic science concepts such as stability, yet their theoretical assumptions are often not concerned with stability. The literature on theory theory and theory-evidence coordination suggests that children construct intuitive theories about their environment which can be adjusted in the face of counterevidence that cannot be assimilated into the prior theory. With increasing age, children acquire a Center theory when balancing objects and try to balance every object at their middle, succeeding with symmetrical objects. (...) Later, they acquire the basic science concept of stability through learning that the weight distribution of an object is of importance. Thus, they acquire a Mass theory and succeed in balancing asymmetrical objects as well. Fluid and crystallized intelligence might contribute to children’s acquisition of Mass theory. Moreover, their Mass theory might be supported by implementing a playful intervention including (a) material scaffolds and (b) verbal scaffolds. Aims We investigated which theories children have about stability and whether these theories can be adjusted to Mass theory by implementing a playful intervention. Method A total of 183 5- to 6-year-old children took part in the study with a pre-post-follow-up intervention design. Children’s Mass theory was assessed with an interview in which children explained constructions’ stabilities. The children received a playful intervention with two differing degrees of scaffolding (material scaffolds or material + verbal scaffolds) or no scaffolding. Results At first few children used a Mass theory to explain their reasoning. However, after being confronted with counterevidence for the asymmetrical constructions, children changed their explanation and applied a Mass theory. More children in the play group with the highest degree of scaffolding, i.e., material + verbal scaffolds, acquired a Mass theory compared to the other groups. Fluid as well as crystallized intelligence contributed to children’s acquisition of a Mass theory. Discussion Counterevidence can support children in their acquisition of a Mass theory. A playful intervention with scaffolding supports children even more. (shrink)

This paper gives insight into the Islamic bioethical discussion on harvesting and using human embryonic and adult stem cells. It describes some of the Islamic legal mechanisms involved in the bioethical discourse among Muslims. As the contemporary Islamic bioethical discourse is very diverse, the paper focuses on the critical discussion of related resolutions of the Saudi-based Islamic Fiqh Academy due to the esteem in which the IFA is held in the Islamic world and the pertinence of their rulings on this (...) issue. This study discusses the different sources of human adult and embryonic stem cells and their use from an Islamic perspective, while questioning some directions the Islamic bioethical discourse has taken. The paper invites interested parties to deliberate the use of some of the legal means resorted to in the ongoing Islamic bioethical discourse. (shrink)

The Dutch system of obstetric care is often recommended for midwife-attended births, the high number of home deliveries, and the low rate of intervention during pregnancy and labour. In this contribution, the question is addressed whether processes of medicalization can be demonstrated in the Dutch midwife practice. Medicalization of pregnancy and childbirth is often criticized because it creates dependency on the medical system and infringement of the autonomy of pregnant women. It is concluded that medicalization is present in the practice (...) of Dutch independent midwives, however it is less clear and outspoken than in hospital policies. (shrink)

The need for a shift toward healthier and more sustainable diets is evident and is supported by universalized standards for a “planetary health diet” as recommended in the recent EAT-Lancet report. At the same time, differences exist in tastes, preferences and food practices among diverse ethnic groups, which becomes progressively relevant in light of Europe’s increasingly multi-ethnic cities. There is a growing tension between current sustainable diets standards and how diverse ethnic resident groups relate to it within their ‘culturally appropriate’ (...) foodways, raising questions around inclusion. What are dynamics of inclusiveness in migrant food practices? And what does this mean towards the transition to healthy and sustainable food? We study this question among Syrian migrants with different lengths of stay in the Netherlands. Our theoretical framework is based on practice theories, which emphasize the importance of socio-material context and of bodily routines and competences. We use qualitative methods, combining in-depth semi-structured life-history interviews with participant observation. Our findings indicate that inclusiveness takes different forms as migrants’ food practices and the food environment change. Regarding health and sustainability in food practices, understandings and competences around particularly fresh food change over time among both short- and long-term migrants, replacing making things from scratch with seasonal products with buying more processed products and out-of-season vegetables and fruits. We conclude that the performances of food practices and their configurations in food environments and lifestyles are dynamic and cannot unequivocally be interpreted as in- or exclusive, but that a more nuanced understanding is required. (shrink)

At present, the debate on global justice, a debate which is at the core of global ethics, is largely being conducted by European and American scholars from different disciplines without taking into account views and concepts from other regions of the world, particularly, from the Global South. The lack of a truly intercultural, interreligious, and international exchange of ideas provokes doubts whether the concepts of global justice introduced so far are able to transcend regional and cultural horizons. The article introduces (...) concepts of justice from African scholars, whose voices have remained marginal until now, like the Kenyan philosopher Henry Odera Oruka, the Ethiopian philosopher Teodros Kiros, and the debate on ubuntu, one of the most controversial concepts in southern Africa today. These concepts focus on issues that are seldom considered in the debate on global justice, such as the importance of bodily needs as a prerequisite for human beings to act as moral beings and the importance of human rel.. (shrink)

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People with mental illnesses have higher prevalence and mortality rates with regard to common somatic diseases and causes of death, such as cardio-vascular conditions or cancer. One factor contributing to this excess morbidity and mortality is the sub-standard level of physical healthcare offered to the mentally ill. In particular, they are often subject to diagnostic overshadowing: a tendency to attribute physical symptoms to a pre-existing diagnosis of mental illness. This might be seen as an unfortunate instance of epistemic bad luck, (...) where particular features of a group of patients make a timely and correct diagnosis unlikely. While this can explain some cases of diagnostic overshadowing, I argue that in other cases, epistemic injustice is involved. Analyzing the case of diagnostic overshadowing, I distinguish two kinds of testimonial injustice. For one, there are classic cases of transactional testimonial injustice resulting from prejudices against the mentally ill. In addition, there are cases of structural testimonial injustice resulting from features of health care systems. To overcome diagnostic overshadowing, remedies on the individual as well as structural level are thus needed. (shrink)

Psychiatric classification is highly controversial, as could be witnessed again with the latest revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). These controversies comprise multiple kinds of critiques by a variety of actors. It is unlikely that all these issues will be overcome by one perfect solution in the future. Rather, it is precisely the DSM’s “one-size-fits-all-approach” that lies at the root of many of the current problems. To restore the scientific and public credibility of psychiatric classification, (...) a multi-dimensional pluralist response is thus needed: (1) theoretical pluralism, meaning a promotion of different research projects and heuristic strategies, (2) taxonomic pluralism, which allows for different classifications used in research versus clinical practice, and (3) participatory pluralism, which concerns the diversity of perspectives and stakeholders in DSM-revisions. (shrink)

Gilbert et al. argue that the concerns about the influence of Deep Brain Stimulation on – as they lump together – personality, identity, agency, autonomy, authenticity and the self are due to an ethics hype. They argue that there is only a small empirical base for an extended ethics debate. We will critically examine their claims and argue that Gilbert and colleagues do not show that the identity debate in DBS is a bubble, they in fact give very little evidence (...) for that. Rather they show the challenges of doing research in a field that is stretched out over multiple disciplines. In that sense their paper is an important starting point for a discussion on methodology and offers valuable lessons for a future research agenda. (shrink)

This supplement serves a double purpose. It presents, on the one hand, a selection of papers devoted to the title question “How much philosophy in the philosophy of science?”. On the other hand, it signalizes the newly established cooperation between the German Society for the Philosophy of Science and the Journal for General Philosophy of Science .The GWP was founded in Hannover in 2011 and had its inaugural conference in March 2013 [for a report on the “GWP.2013” by H. Lyre (...) see EPSA Newsletter 2 2013]. The society was launched for several reasons. Albeit the German community of philosophers of science is quite large , it is at the same time a rather distributed and dispersed community. This has to do with the university landscape in Germany, which is dispersed rather t .. (shrink)

Volume 26, Issue 1, March 2023, Page 86-90.

This collection features eleven original essays, divided into three thematic sections, which explore the work of Wilfrid Sellars in relation to other twentieth-century thinkers. Section I analyzes Sellars’s thought in light of some of his influential predecessors, specifically Ludwig Wittgenstein, Rudolf Carnap, John Cook Wilson, and Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz. The second group of essays explores from different perspectives Sellars’s place within the analytic tradition, including his relation with analytic Kantianism and analytic pragmatism. The book’s final section extracts some of the most (...) significant lessons Sellars’s work has to offer for contemporary philosophy. These chapters address his views on inference, his views on truth and its connection to recent discussions about truth-relativism and truth-pluralism, his conception of self-knowledge, and his theory of perceptual experience. (shrink)

Ethical frameworks can support professionals’ decision‐making. Here, we identify two ethical frameworks to analyse the best support for families that struggle with parental substance or alcohol abuse. The first framework, which we call ‘the framework of conflicting interests’, is most prominent in the literature. Here, the interests of parents and children are weighed against each other using the medical ethical principles of respect for autonomy, justice, beneficence, and non‐maleficence. The second framework is most prominent in a series of interviews we (...) conducted with alcohol‐dependent parents and professionals working in addiction care and youth care. This framework aligns more with an ethics of care, and starts with the assumption that the interests of people who are close to each other are often intertwined. This framework does not so much look at conflicting interests, but at relationships and vulnerability. We label this the ethics of care framework. In this article, we show the value of both frameworks and how they can support ethical decision‐making. (shrink)

Based on the ideas of two main representatives of the academic discourse on Ubuntu, Michael O. Eze and Mogobe B. Ramose, the paper shows how the concept of Ubuntu can contribute to transcending conventional concepts of cosmopolitanism. Referring to the concept of Ubuntu, Ramose and Eze criticize ‘Western’ concepts of cosmopolitanism because they always seem to start from binary oppositions (‘I’ and ‘other’), which must be reconciled. ‘Western’ cosmopolitanism continues to build on boundaries (nations, cultures, etc.) that constitute communities and (...) exclude the ‘other’. Here the boundary remains a place of exclusion. Therefore, it is necessary to conceptualize categories such as ‘boundary’ and the ‘Other’ in a different way. Ubuntu as a concept where the human being is essentially a relational being (one who exists in and through relationships) seems to offer an alternative in the sense of a ‘critical’ (Mignolo, 2002a) or ‘emancipatory’ cosmopolitanism. (Pieterse, 2006; Ngcoya, 2015). (shrink)

In recent years, the practices of artists in non-artistic environments have set my mind in motion. Where before I could marvel at the visual outcomes of the artistic process and would want to understand how processes of creating meaning could be described, I am now particularly struck by the way in which artists are present, by their way of looking, how they make decisions, when and how they act, how they take responsibility. I have conversations with them and ask questions (...) to better understand their processes, and I explore literature to find people with a similar quest. This process of moving and being moved lies at the heart of the book 'The Artistic Attitude'"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Looking at contemporary Japanese images of the self and how Japanese scholars have conceptualised the notion of the subjectivity three remarkable concepts of “the self” can be identified and distinguished from another: the Inner Self, the Political Self, the Social Self. In my paper I will discuss these concepts by high lightening their hybridity, plurality and their emphasis on the identity as an effect of self-realization. I shall argue that the investigation in the Japaneseunderstanding of the self is particularly fruitful (...) for a global understanding of subjectivity, because Japanese selfhood does not represent the “otherness” of the western thought but is actually crisscrossed by western and eastern ideas. What can be marked as the Inner Self combines ideas of the Buddhist “Non-Self” (anatman) and the European Idealistic Ego (Ich). Embedded in practises of meditation the Inner Self in the Japanese understanding is realized through the activity of finding and loosing oneself. The Political Self can be perceived as an amalgamation of the Asian art of the regime of the group and the western thought of Liberalism and personal identity. Somewhat discovered in Japan as a possibility of the self in the 19th century the Political Self comes into existence througheducational practise. Furthermore the Social Self brings together Chinese Confucian ethics and ancient Japanese Shintoism. Understood as a particle in the flow of social relations the Social Self is realized in Japan within the rituals of everyday live and physical hence tactical education in the childhood of a person. The Japanese concepts of the self exemplify on the level of their formal configuration the qualities of what can be called a plural anthropology. (shrink)

This text describes a single engraving of the picture encyclopediaBilder-Akademie für die Jugend published from 1780 to 1784. It consisted of 52 picture tableaus, each with nine images that were connected through the biblical topic. The particular image under examination, the “Table 38”, shows the healing wonders of Christ, the electrifying maschine, a healing physician and the structure of ear and eye. Goal of this text will be to describe the different connections and meanings of these depicted scenes, as in (...) the same time I will argue, that pictures can not only be interpreted by understanding how people looked at them, but also to take into question what people did with them. (shrink)